Teen’s family driver offered money, threatened to be held responsible for crash, police say

Pune: The father and grandfather of the 17-year-old minor allegedly involved in the Porsche accident offered money and gifts to their family’s driver and later threatened him to take responsibility for the accident. “accident,” Pune police chief Amitesh Kumar said on Saturday. The driver and his family will benefit from police protection, he said.

Police arrested the grandfather for allegedly kidnapping the driver in an attempt to force him to claim he was driving the car at the time of the May 19 crash, he said. Later that day, he was produced in court and police requested seven days’ custody to conduct investigation.

After the accident, the driver told the police that he was driving when the accident took place. But it was revealed that a teenager was driving the car, the police commissioner said.

Kumar said after the driver left the Yerawada police station, where the case was registered, and was on his way when the two accused took him in a car to his home in their bungalow, confiscated his phone and locked him there.

He was pressured to give his statement to police as instructed, he said. The driver was offered gifts and cash and then threatened to take responsibility, the official said. The driver’s wife arrived at the scene the next day and freed him, the police chief said.

“The driver was afraid. He was summoned and his statement was recorded on Thursday. After matching the facts, an offense against the minor’s father and grandfather was recorded,” he said.

The police also registered a case against the teenager’s father, Vishal Agarwal, and his grandfather following a complaint lodged by the driver.

Agarwal, a real estate developer, and his father were booked under IPC sections 365 (kidnapping with intent to secretly and unjustly confine a person) and 368 (concealment or unjust continued detention), he said. he declares. Agarwal is already in judicial custody.

The family’s driver said he was not driving the car at the time of the accident and that the teenager’s relatives were using pressure tactics to push him to take responsibility for the accident.

The driver and his family will be given police protection, Kumar said, adding that he was in shock after his wrongful detention.

The Pune police on Friday suspended two police officers, including an inspector of Yerwada police station, for delay in presenting themselves and dereliction of duty in the case. Kumar said the police officers faced action as their conduct was not appropriate.

The Porsche, allegedly driven by the teenager, who police said was drunk at the time, killed two software engineers on a motorcycle in Kalyani Nagar area in the wee hours of Sunday, May 19.

A local court in Pune on Friday took into custody all six accused arrested in the case, including the teenager’s father. The teenager is in an observation home until June 5.

The parents of the two IT workers killed in the accident, based in Madhya Pradesh, have demanded that the Supreme Court supervise the investigation and the trial be held in their state.