Pune Porsche crash | Teen’s blood sample swapped with his mother’s: Reports

The blood sample of the minor who was allegedly driving the Porsche car that killed two IT professionals in Pune may have been swapped with his mother’s to manipulate the alcohol test, media reports said on Thursday (May 30).

This development comes a day after the Maharashtra government suspended two doctors of state-run Sassoon General Hospital and a staffer in connection with the alleged manipulation of the blood sample. The suspension came after they were arrested two days earlier.

Separately, B J Medical College and Sassoon Civil Hospital dean Dr Vinayak Kale was sent on compulsory leave and the additional charge is handed over to Dr Chandrakant Mhaske.

The suspension of Dr Ajay Taware, professor and head of the department of forensic medicine and Dr Shrihari Halnor, medical officer, was ordered on the recommendation given by the Maharashtra Medical Education Department commissioner Rajiv Nivatkar.

Pune Police had arrested the two doctors and Atul Ghatkamble, a class IV employee of the Sassoon Hospital, after it emerged that the blood samples of the 17-year-old driver were thrown into a dustbin and replaced with another person’s samples which showed no traces of alcohol. The trio was remanded in police custody till May 30.

On Monday (May 27), the Maharashtra Medical Education Department formed a three-member committee headed by Dr Pallavi Sapale, dean of Mumbai-based Grants Medical College, to probe into the alleged manipulation of the blood sample of the teenager.

According to a report in NDTV, citing police sources, the committee’s report has revealed that blood samples of a woman and two elderly men had been collected with the intention of switching the teen accused's sample.

Police now suspect that the teen’s mother’s sample had been collected as part of this plan, the sources added.

According to police, the minor driver was drunk at the time of the incident in the early hours of May 19 in Kalyani Nagar area of Pune city.

As per the police, the juvenile, who is in the observation home, had partied in Cosie restaurant and Blak Club.

Amid outrage over the car crash, police arrested the father and grandfather of the minor for allegedly trying to stall the probe.

The grandfather had allegedly tried to wrongfully confine the family driver in their bungalow from May 19 to May 20 and pressured him to take the blame for the accident.

The prosecution had told a local court that financial transactions had taken place in the alleged replacement of the original blood sample of the juvenile driver with another person's sample by the two doctors.

The juvenile's father had called one of the doctors and asked him to change the samples, the prosecution said, adding that police wanted to investigate who else had given the instructions to manipulate the samples.

The juvenile was sent to remand home till June 5.

(With Agency inputs)