New Delhi: Saturday night, 10:30 PM. A teenager, along with a group of friends, entered a restaurant and bar called Cosie in Pune to celebrate his Class 12 results. He had scored 60 percent marks.
Around midnight, the restaurant refused to serve them any more alcohol and asked them to leave. According to the Pune Police, the minor, aged 17 years and eight months, allegedly paid Rs 48,000 from his father’s credit card for drinks the group had, and left.
The group then went to Blak Club in Marriott Suites at 12:25 AM where they ordered more alcohol. They left the place at 1:22 AM.
After lurking in the area for a while, the teenager began driving towards his house in his father’s Porsche Taycan. In the wee hours of Sunday at around 2:30 AM, he allegedly lost control of the car on account of being intoxicated, and rammed into two tech professionals — a man and a woman — on a motorcycle.
Ashwini Koshta, the pillion rider, died on the spot. Aneesh Awadhiya, who was riding the motorcycle, was shifted to a hospital, and succumbed to his injuries.
Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar told ThePrint, “From Cosie, the juvenile, along with his friends, moved to Blak Club. They reached this bar at 12:25 am and stayed there till 1:22 am. Here, he paid Rs 20,000 in cash.”
Cosie is located in Pune’s Koregaon Park and Blak Club in Marriott Suites in Mundhwa. Both pubs have now been sealed by the Maharashtra excise department.
The minor was booked under Indian Penal Code sections — 304A (causing death by negligence), 304 (culpable homicide), 337 (negligent driving endangering safety of others), 338 (rash or negligent act that endangers personal safety) and 427 (mischief causing loss or damage punishable with imprisonment, which may extend to two years or with fine, or both), and other sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
A second FIR was lodged against five others, including the boy’s father and owners of the pubs that served alcohol to the boys. Sections 75 (wilful neglect of a child) and 77 (supplying child with liquor or drugs) of the Juvenile Justice Act have been added to this FIR. The owners of the two pubs, along with the father, were placed under arrest by the police Tuesday. The father has been remanded to two days of police custody.
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48-hour manhunt
While the teenager was arrested immediately after the incident, his father managed to dodge the police for over 48 hours, before being nabbed at a resort in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, formerly known as Aurangabad.
Right after his son allegedly mowed down two people, the Pune-based realtor allegedly hatched an elaborate plan to evade arrest. Investigation into the matter has revealed that the realtor did not just constantly change his location, he also used decoy cars and fake SIM cards, but was finally arrested after a manhunt that lasted 48 hours.
“The father of the minor, the builder, changed locations. He went to Kolhapur, and then to Samhajinagar, and even tried to send another car to Mumbai in a bid to mislead the police,” Police Commissioner Kumar told ThePrint.
According to Pune Police, the father asked one of his drivers to go to Mumbai in a car and asked another driver to go to Goa, so that the police could not identify his exact location.
“He had gone with the driver to Mumbai, but soon got off and came back, while the car was sent to Mumbai. He also got a new SIM card. He came back using a friend’s car. He basically deployed two-three decoy cars to escape the police, and even switched off his mobile phone. We finally located him on the basis of CCTV footage and GPS tracking,” Kumar said.
No number plate on the Porsche
Police sources have told ThePrint that the registration of the Porsche Taycan, worth around Rs 2 crore, was still pending. “The Porsche behind the accident was running without registration since March, and didn’t have a permanent number plate. Rs 1,758 has been pending and the registration is incomplete,” a source said.
The police commissioner told ThePrint that the car had no number plate.
The minor was granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board within 15 hours of his arrest under the conditions that he works with Pune’s Yerwada traffic police for 15 days, composes a 300-word essay, undergoes treatment for alcohol dependency, and submits a report thereafter.
A juvenile court ruled Wednesday that the 17-year-old will be tried for drunk driving, under Section 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act.
The death of the two software engineers and the accused’s instant bail had sparked massive outrage with family members of the two victims terming the incident “murder”.
The Opposition in Maharashtra has claimed that the minor was being given preferential treatment. Allegations have also been levelled against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA Sunil Tingre that he pressured the police to provide favourable treatment to him.
The MLA has, however, denied the allegations.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut has also questioned the city police over alleged delay in action.
Meanwhile, Pune Police have said that the juvenile should be tried as an adult. In a press conference Tuesday, Kumar said that the police will be filing a fresh appeal in the matter. Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has also questioned the bail conditions imposed on the teenager. “We have appealed to the district court against the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Board order. There is a huge public outrage. I have taken stock of the investigation updates till now,” Fadnavis told the media.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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