Pune: Prominent Pune builder Vishal S. Agarwal and his father Surendrakumar B. Agarwal, who were arrested for allegedly tampering with and destroying evidence pertaining to the minor boy’s Porsche car crash, were on Tuesday sent by a local court to police custody till May 31.
Vishal S. Agarwal, 50, was arrested late on Monday, while the police remand of Surendrakumar B. Agarwal, 77, ended on Tuesday and they were produced before a magistrate’s court in the afternoon.
Arguing for custodial interrogation of the father-son duo, police prosecutor Nilesh Ladkat said that the accused were not cooperating with the investigations into the sensational case.
The prosecution said that they had seized the BMW car in which the Agarwals had gone to abduct their driver, Gangaram Pujari from the police station and brought him to their house where he was confined, and lured and threatened to take the blame for the fatal accident.
The police have yet to trace the driver’s mobile phone, allegedly seized by the Agarwals, on which they had made the threat calls, as the two accused were giving evasive replies to the investigators on this.
Ladkat said that in the preliminary probe, it has emerged that the CCTV footage of the Agarwals’ bungalow – where the driver was kept – may have been tampered with and further investigations were required on this.
In a statement to the police, Pujari had detailed how after he came out of the Yerawada Police Station on May 19, the two Agarwals came in the BMW, took away his phone, and forcibly took him to their bungalow. There they lured and threatened him to take the onus of the Porsche car crash in a bid to save the 17-year-old boy, currently lodged in a juvenile correctional home till June 4.
Meanwhile, a resident of Kalyani Nagar, who claimed to have witnessed the Porsche crash seconds after he had crossed the same road, said that there were a couple of “heavily sozzled” youngsters in the luxury car which crashed into a motorcycle, killing IT professionals Ashwini Koshtha and Aneesh Awadhiya, both 24, from Madhya Pradesh.
The eyewitness told media persons that the duo was beaten by an angry crowd even as they begged, pleaded and even offered the members of the crowd “as much money as you want” to spare them, but they were handed over to the Yerawada Police.
(IANS)
