WhatsApp chats, ‘bid to frame’ driver: The ‘cash, clout and conspiracy’ of the Pune Porsche probe

On the night of May 20, Ashpaq Makandar, a close aide of NCP MLA Sunil Tingre, retweeted the legislator’s post expressing grief over an accident, in which two software engineers were killed after being hit by a speeding Porsche Taycan Turbo that was allegedly driven by a minor in Pune. But just 36 hours before that post, Makandar had allegedly been a key player in a conspiracy to tamper with evidence in this very case.

Newslaundry has now seen riveting details of the 900-page chargesheet, filed by the Pune Police on July 25, which alleges an attempt to blindfold the probe by the rich and mighty. 

These include how blood samples were switched at the state-run Sassoon Hospital to ensure there was no incriminating evidence against the minor accused. For example, how instead of blood samples of the accused minor driver, the sample taken from his mother was given for analysis. 

These also feature WhatsApp chats between the accused, suggesting plans to blame the deceased for the accident, and to frame a fourth person, an adult driver who was allegedly in the car but not behind the wheels at the time of the accident. Referring to this driver, the mother of the accused minor driver, for example, wrote, “I have a point, whether who was driving the car is a secondary issue and yet to be proved, but the driver was there in the car...that’s confirmed than (sic) isn’t it negligence on the driver’s end.”

The chargesheet names seven accused, including the parents and grandfather of the minor who was driving the car; two senior doctors at the state-run Sassoon Hospital; and two middlemen. The 17-year-old driver is not named as an accused as his case is presently being handled by the Juvenile Justice Board.   

The common link between all the accused is Tingre, the MLA from Vadgaon Sheri constituency in Pune. 

Tingre arrived at Yerwada police station at 3 am, soon after the minors were handed over to the police by the gathered crowd at the scene of the accident. Speaking to Newslaundry, the MLA said, “I have known the family [of the minor driver] for the last 30 years. There are friends there, and that’s why I went there. They called me for help…But after reaching there, when I came to know the minor had committed an accident, I didn’t interfere in any way.”

Establishing a network 

At around 9.40 am on May 19, Makandar and another middleman named Amar Gaikwad met Atul Ghatkamble, a low-ranking staffer at Sassoon General Hospital. They gave Ghatkamble a packet full of money. When Pune Police would carry out a search of Ghatkamble’s residence in end-May, they would find Rs 50,000 and he would confess to this being a bribe he received in the Porsche crash case. 

Ghatkamble’s was the smaller share. Casualty medical officer (CMO) of Sassoon General Hospital, Dr Shrihari Halnor received Rs 2.5 lakh, which was also recovered by Pune Police. 

Makandar entered Dr Halnor’s office (CMO cabin) to meet him at 11.07 am on May 19 and was there for approximately five minutes. He came out and called Dr Ajay Taware, then the head of forensic medicine at Sassoon Hospital and one of the accused in Pune Police’s chargesheet. Dr Taware and Makandar spoke for 1 minute and 24 seconds, after which Dr Taware spoke to Dr Halnor for 1 minute and five seconds. Then Dr Taware called Makandar back. In a span of just 10 minutes, six calls were exchanged between the two doctors and Makandar. 

A senior police officer reportedly said in May, “Our probe suggests that changing the sample, to tamper with the blood alcohol concentration test to scuttle the probe, was Dr Taware’s idea”. Dr Taware is the senior-most of the hospital staff who have been accused by Pune Police in this case. He was backed by Tingre for the post of medical superintendent at Sassoon Hospital in December 2023. In 2022, Dr Taware’s name had surfaced in cases of irregularities in kidney transplants at the hospital.

Meanwhile, at 10.15 am, constables Amit Shinde and Ananda Bhosale received a call from assistant police inspector Vishwanath Todkari, instructing them to take the three minors and driver Gangadhar Herikrub to Sassoon Hospital for medical examinations. (Todkari was later suspended pending inquiry, along with police inspector Rahul Jagdale, for dereliction of duty in their handling of this case.) Shinde and Bhosale left Yerwada police station with the three minors and Herikrub and, according to Shinde’s statement, they reached the hospital at 10.30 am. The police would ultimately leave the hospital at 1.18 pm. In the intervening hours, Makandar had multiple conversations with Dr Halnor and was present in the CMO’s cabin when the medical examinations of the minors were taking place.  

Other tests and the blood samples

Once at the hospital, Herikrub was taken to the emergency ward and his blood sample was collected. In sharp contrast to Herikrub being processed in the more public ward, the three minors were examined in the CMO’s cabin. After waiting outside the cabin, from 11.39 am onwards, they went in, one after another. 

The first to go in was the minor driver, followed by his two friends who were in the car at the time of the accident. Makandar was in and out of the CMO’s cabin while Dr Halnor conducted tests assessing the minors’ sense of smell, speech, gait and pupil response. By this time, more than eight hours had passed since the minor had rammed into Koshta and Awadhiya on a motorcycle while being in a state of inebriation. As per Dr Halnor’s reports, the three minors show no signs of alcohol influence. 

In his statement, constable Shinde said, “After conducting the medical examinations of the three minors, Dr Halnor instructed us to call their parents, as parental permission was required for the blood samples. When we asked the minors about their parents, they informed us that their families were already waiting outside.” Dr Halnor called two resident doctors to help collect the blood samples. 

At around 12.25 pm, a friend of the accused minor entered the CMO’s cabin with his father to provide a blood sample. Five minutes later, they exited the cabin, while Makandar stayed inside.

At 12.31 pm, the accused minor driver went into the CMO’s cabin with his mother. The cabin has an outer area and an inner chamber, where the blood samples were taken. The accused’s mother came out to speak with Makandar, after which the minor driver’s older brother also entered the cabin.

When they left, a third minor entered the cabin with his father’s friend  and went into the room inside to provide his blood sample. 

According to the chargesheet, while the blood samples were being taken of the three minors and their family members in the CMO’s cabin, Makandar kept coming in and out. 

Finally, the mother’s blood was taken as a sample. Makandar and Gaikwad were both in the cabin. Shinde’s statement says Ghatkamble also made repeated visits.  

The statements of resident doctors Saundarya Sawale and Saili Kulkarni confirm that Dr Halnor tasked them with taking blood samples from the adults accompanying the minors. Sawale collected blood from the minor driver’s mother while Kulkarni collected samples from the father of the second minor accused and a family friend of the third minor. This was done to make it seem as though there was no alcohol content in the minors’ blood. These samples were then sent to the Regional Forensic Laboratory in Pune. The results would indicate the minors were not drunk on the night of the accident, which ran counter to the statements of various eyewitnesses (these are also in the chargesheet). 

At around 1.08 pm, the three minors entered the CMO’s cabin, followed closely by Dr Halnor. Three minutes later, they emerged from the cabin. While Dr Halnor did paperwork, Makandar and Gaikwad spoke with the police officials present. At 1.18 pm, the police left the CMO’s cabin, after which Makandar and Gaikwad again went inside with Dr Halnor. They came out a minute later. At 1.39 pm, Makandar called Dr Taware using WhatsApp’s voice call feature and spoke to him for 36 seconds. They spoke again for almost two and a half minutes at 6 pm on the same day, indicating Makandar and Dr Taware were working closely together.  

A case on WhatsApp

On May 20, a group was created on WhatsApp which included the minor driver’s parents, his grandfather, and a team of lawyers. Messages exchanged in this group are included in the chargesheet, which Newslaundry has accessed. 

The minor driver’s mother, who became a party to tampering with evidence when she gave blood in her son’s place, said in the group, “I want someone to tell the media that my son is  mentally going through lots of trauma” because of how he was being written about in the media. “He is a child after all and (the) crime is still under investigation nothing is proven and there was a driver too in the car about whom there is no mention of,” she said, speaking of Herikrub, who told the police that he had warned the minor to not drive the car because he was too drunk, but had been ordered by the minor to sit in the passenger seat.

The chats in this group suggest there was a concerted effort to frame Herikrub. 

The mother at one point suggests the deaths may be attributed to Herikrub’s negligence. “I have a point, whether who was driving the car is a secondary issue and yet to be proved, but the driver was there in the car...that’s confirmed than (sic) isn’t it negligence on the driver’s end,” she wrote. 

The minor driver’s grandfather suggested reframing the case to the following: “The deceased were totally drunk and came before the car from the side, over speeding. … the driver has admitted before the camera that he was driving the car… Thirdly, the car was faulty.” The grandfather also forwarded a message from a friend that said if the deceased could be proven to be drunk at the time of their deaths, it could be used in the minor driver’s favour. On May 19, he would effectively hold Herikrub against his will after confiscating the driver’s phone, as part of an attempt to threaten the driver into taking responsibility for the minor’s actions. 

Among the suggestions made by the lawyers on this group chat, one is for the minor driver to come across as scared. One lawyer suggests the minor say he is “very scared” and that he needs counseling. 

A tangled web

Ultimately, Pune Police booked the minor accused under sections 304A (causing death by negligence), 304 (culpable homicide), 337 (negligent driving endangering others), 338 (rash or negligent driving endangering personal safety) and 427 (causing loss or damage). A second FIR charged the minor driver’s father, who is a prominent builder and realtor in Pune, as well as owners of the pubs that the three minors had visited before the accident, under sections 75 (wilful neglect) and 77 (supplying a child with liquor or drugs) of the Juvenile Justice Act. Additionally, Pune Police said the registration of the Porsche was still pending and the car had no permanent number plate. 

The police have also moved court for permission to try the minor driver, who is currently in his aunt’s custody,  as an adult – the court is yet to decide on the request. 

Initially, there was enormous outcry when the Juvenile Justice Board granted the minor bail under lenient conditions within hours of his arrest. Subsequently, a probe panel of the state Women and Child Development (WCD) Department was set up and it recommended action against two members of the Juvenile Justice Board – LN Danwade and Kavita Thorat – for alleged “procedural lapses, misconduct and non-compliance with norms”. 

So far, Danwade and Thorat’s associations with the Juvenile Justice Board have been terminated in connection with the board’s decision to grant bail to the minor accused. Aside from the three staff members of Sassoon Hospital who are among the accused, two doctors have been arrested for tampering with the blood samples. The minor driver’s grandfather was also arrested on May 25 for Herikrub’s abduction and unlawful confinement. 

Two police officers have also been suspended for breach of protocol with regard to their handling of the case.

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