Pune: A Pune court on Friday sent realtor Vishal S. Agarwal and his wife Shivani V. Agarwal to 14 days’ judicial remand in the case pertaining to the destruction of evidence of the Porsche accident on May 19.
The Agarwals are the parents of a 17-year-old boy accused of the drunken hit-and-run accident with his Porsche that killed two techies – Ashwini Koshtha and Anish Awadhiya, both aged 24 and hailing from Madhya Pradesh – at Kalyani Nagar junction that morning.
The couple were produced before the court after their police custody ended, along with another co-accused Ashpak Makandar, who was the middle-man for the alleged blood swap deal.
The prosecutor sought judicial remand for the Agarwals which was granted and another three days’ police custody for Makandar, but the court rejected this and he too was sent to 14 days judicial remand.
The Agarwals and Makandar had allegedly changed the blood samples of the minor boy to prove that he was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident, which had triggered a nationwide furore.
Makandar had allegedly acted as a conduit in the deal between the Agarwals and doctors of the government-run Sassoon General Hospital where the blood samples were collected on May 19. The police have alleged that the boy’s blood sample was allegedly swapped with his mother (Shivani Agarwal) ostensibly to derail the investigation.
The prosecution argued that Makandar had met the Agarwals in this connection and they wanted to probe this aspect deeper plus find out the money trail of Rs 5 lakh in which Rs 4 lakh have been recovered. However, the defence lawyers said that no fresh grounds had been established by the police nor much progress had been made in the investigations and opposed the plea for further remand.
The minor boy is presently under detention at a juvenile correctional facility till June 25, after the Juvenile Justice Board declined to release him on June 12.
(IANS)
