Twenty minutes before she crashed her Audi Q3, 35-year-old lawyer Janhavi Gadkar is believed to have had a second drinking session a few kilometres away at Kala Ghoda. Earlier, Gadkar had said she had tried “sobering” herself at Marine Drive after having a few drinks at a hotel and before driving back home. However, the police have obtained CCTV footage reportedly showing that she was at a pub shortly before the crash. Gadkar reportedly shared a pitcher of beer with a colleague at table number 18 of the Irish House Pub in Khalaghoda. The police Friday collected the CCTV footage and took custody of the bill, and recorded statements of the staff. [related-post] According to officials, the police were informed of the lawyer’s presence at the pub by a customer who spotted the two RIL employees. The police summoned Gadkar’s colleague on Friday to record a statement. An RIL spokesperson told The Indian Express that the executive was busy with the company’s annual general meeting, which was on Friday, and is expected to visit the RCF police station over the weekend. According to sources, Gadkar, who entered the pub along with her colleague a little after 11 pm, drank with him for around an hour and a half before starting for her Chembur home in her Audi Q3. She was allegedly speeding at 120 kmph and lightly scraped two cars before colliding with a taxi, killing the driver and a passenger. Gadkar remained mostly unhurt as the Audi’s airbags opened, leaving her with some bruises. “We have a copy of the bill from the pub, and from that it is very clear that she was drinking. The bill was footed by her senior colleague,” a senior police officer told The Indian Express. Before visiting the Irish House Pub, Gadkar allegedly downed six pegs of whiskey with two other colleagues at Hotel Marine Plaza. The bill at Marine Plaza was paid by her using her credit card. On Friday, a police team from the RCF police station, where the case was registered, visited the pub and collected the bill and CCTV footage. Gadkar was also taken to the pub, where she identified the table at which she sat. The police also recorded the statements of waiters who served the two. The waiters identified Gadkar as having visited the pub that night along with another person, the police said. “The place is dimly light and so the CCTV footage is very grainy, but we have statements of the waiters who served and presented the bill to the duo,” a senior police officer said. The police claimed that after Gadkar left Marine Plaza around 10 pm, she walked on the Marine Drive promenade for around an hour. During this time she spoke to the senior executive over the phone. She then met him at the Irish House Pub, which is a few kilometres from Marine Plaza. Gadkar managed to drive till the pub in her Audi after having six pegs of whiskey. The FSL report of Janhavi’s blood samples state that the alcohol content in her blood was 200 mg per 100 ml. The legal limit of blood alcohol concentration is 0.03 per cent. The police will now speak to four more witnesses who were at the site of the accident on Tuesday. The police also recorded statements of security guards at a government establishment whose motorbike Gadkar allegedly rammed into Govandi last week. No case was filed by the guards. Meanwhile, Gadkar was sent to Byculla Jail on Friday evening after the Kurla court remanded her in judicial custody until June 26. (With inputs from Srinath Rao and Shreya Arora)
