Pune, Aug 17 (PTI) Two more persons have been arrested in connection with the alleged swapping of blood samples in the Kalyaninagar Porsche crash case, a top police official said here on Tuesday.
The number of persons arrested in the case has now risen to nine.
Police on late Monday arrested Aditya Avinash Sood (52) and Ashish Satish Mittal (37) whose blood samples were allegedly used as replacement for the samples of two minors.
These two boys were with the 17-year-old who was driving the Porsche at the time of the accident that claimed the lives of two motorbike- riders here in the wee hours of May 19.
The swapping was done because all three minors in the car were allegedly drunk.
“The blood samples of the two minors who were with the juvenile accused in the car were swapped with those of these two (arrested) persons,” Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar said earlier this morning.
Sood is the father of one of the minors, while Mittal is the friend of another minor’s father, Arunkumar Singh.
Singh, also made an accused in the case, is currently absconding.
Sood and Mittal were on Tuesday produced before additional sessions judge U M Mudholkar who remanded them in police custody till August 26.
As per the investigators, Arunkumar Singh asked Mittal to give his blood samples, to be used as a substitute for the sample of Singh’s minor son.
“In the case of the other minor, his father’s (Sood) blood samples were used,” said a crime branch official.
While seeking police custody of the accused for seven days, the prosecution said the fathers of both the minors induced Dr Shreehari Halnor, then chief medical officer at the Sassoon General Hospital and one of the accused, to give a negative alcohol content report even though the minors had consumed liquor.
Assistant police commissioner and investigation officer Ganesh Ingale told the court that the police wanted to find out who else was involved in the conspiracy to swap the blood samples, and whether there were any financial transactions to facilitate the switching.
Defence counsels representing Sood and Mittal opposed police custody. The investigation was already complete and a chargesheet has already been filed, they pointed out.
The juvenile driver’s parents Vishal Agarwal and Shivani Agarwal; Dr Ajay Taware, then-HOD (forensic medicine) at Sassoon Hospital, Dr Halnor, and hospital employee Atul Ghatkamble were earlier arrested for allegedly swapping the blood samples of the juvenile driver with those of his mother.
Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad were arrested for allegedly acting as middlemen.
The police recently filed a 900-page chargesheet in the case against these seven accused.
The court is expected to pass its order on the bail application of Vishal Agarwal, Shivani Agarwal, Dr Taware, Dr Halnor, Makandar and Gaikwad on August 22. PTI SPK NP RSY KRK
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