17-year-old crashes Porsche, killing two; police arrest father

Pune: Following a tragic incident involving a speeding Porsche driven by a 17-year-old, the son of the city's prominent builder Vishal Agarwal, which crashed into a motorcycle and killed two IT techies, the police have arrested Vishal Agarwal for allowing his son, a minor without a license to drive the car. Earlier, the decision of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) granted bail to the 17-year-old, on the condition of requiring him to write a 300-word essay on the accident and work for two weeks with the Yerawada Traffic Police has sparked public outrage.

Agarwal was absconding for the past two days after his son knocked down two IT professionals from Madhya Pradesh early on Sunday morning in an alleged case of underage, drunken driving in an unregistered vehicle, sparking a furore in Pune. Tracked and caught by a Pune Crime Branch team in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Vishal Agarwal will be brought to Pune later in the day and produced before a court, officials said.

Soon after the gruesome accident around 2.15 a.m. on Sunday (May 19), the Pune Police booked Vishal Agarwal for handing over the car without a registration to his son who did not have a driving license. The police also booked the owners/managers -- Prahlad Bhutda, Sachin Katkar, Sandeep Sangle and Jayesh Bonkar -- of a prime hotel in Mundhwa, which served the accused minor and his other friends liquor and kept the establishment open beyond the permissible hours.

The two deceased victims were later identified as Ashwini Koshta and Aneesh Awadhiya, both 24, hailing from Madhya Pradesh, and returning on a motorcycle after attending a friend’s get-together. As the boy’s gleaming silver-grey Porsche crashed into the motorcycle, Koshta was flung at least 20 feet high and fell on the road, while Awadhiya fell on a parked car.

Both succumbed instantaneously in the sudden mishap, even as the incident sparked a massive furore on social media networks with people demanding exemplary stringent punishment for the boy and others. The boy was produced on Sunday before the Juvenile Justice Board which granted bail to the accused as he was 17 years and 8 months old, rejecting the police plea to treat him as an adult in view of the heinous crime.

The verdict created more outrage as the JJB asked the boy to write a 300-word essay on the accident, work two weeks with the Yerawada Traffic Police authorities and take medical treatment/counselling to quit drinking. The Pune Police are now taking appropriate legal remedies to appeal against the JJB’s order in a higher court.

Source: IANS