The bribe to swap the blood samples of a 17-year-old boy, who allegedly crashed a Porsche into a motorcycle and killed two software engineers in Pune last month, was paid at the premises of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), which sent the accused to detention after the incident triggered a nationwide outrage. A senior officer in the Pune police said Ashpak Makandar, who was a middleman between the teenager’s family and mortuary staffer Atul Ghalkamble of the Sassoon General Hospital, handed over the bribe.
Ghalkamble has already been arrested along with the hospital’s suspended forensics department head Dr Ajay Taware and former casualty medical officer Dr Shrihari Halnor for allegedly changing the blood samples of the minor.
The accused’s mother, who was also arrested along with his father, recently owned up to evidence tampering before the police, saying she switched his blood samples to conceal the fact that he was inebriated.
“The bribe by the parents was handed over to Ghalkamble by Makandar at the premises of the JJB. Investigations revealed that Ghalkamble was given ₹3 lakh,” the officer cited above said, seeking anonymity.
“Police recovered ₹2.5 lakh from Halnor and the remaining from Ghalkamble,” the officer added.
According to police, the juvenile’s first blood sample was taken on May 19 at around 11am, hours after the incident, at Sassoon General Hospital. When police suspected manipulation of blood sample, another sample of the juvenile was taken at Aundh Government Hospital. A third blood sample of the juvenile’s father was taken and sent for DNA matching with the first sample, which revealed the first one was manipulated and the blood someone else.
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