Pune Porsche Crash: Cops Say Doctor Ajay Taware Took Bribes To ‘Expedite’ Cases Brought By ‘Brokers’

A police probe revealed that Dr Ajay Taware, accused of allegedly swapping the blood samples of the minor accused of Pune Porsche drunk driving case, had an extensive network of brokers across Maharashtra’s western region who brought to him cases which needed to be expedited in return of which he pocketed a bribe.

Further investigation into the Pune Porsche drunk driving case revealed that Dr Ajay Taware’s ‘brokers’ were found in five districts of Maharashtra. These ‘brokers’ would bring ‘cases’ to him from across the state.

This indicates that there are possibly more cases of bureaucratic cover-ups where Dr Ajay Taware could have been involved.

Police said that his ‘handlers’ were primarily from western parts of the state. These ‘brokers/handlers’ would reach out to Taware, securing cases for expedited treatment in exchange for a bribe, which he would then pocket.

Dr Ajay Taware is currently in police custody for allegedly swapping the blood samples of the minor accused of crashing a Porsche into a motorbike in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar and killing two persons.

He is accused of swapping them with the samples of another person’s blood which had no traces of alcohol.

State-run Sassoon hospital’s chief medical officer Dr Shrihari Halnor and staff member Atul Ghatkamble have also been arrested for allegedly aiding Taware, the hospital’s head of the hospital’s forensic medicine department, in disposing of the samples.

Two IT professionals were killed after their motorcycle was hit by a speeding Porsche car allegedly driven by the 17-year-old boy in the early hours of May 19 in Kalyani Nagar area in Pune. The blood report is a key piece of evidence as police claim the teenager had visited two pubs prior to the incident.

Meanwhile, Dr Ajay Taware’s name was reportedly mentioned in connection with a kidney racket in 2022. He is also accused of manipulating the gender test report of a daughter-in-law of a retired customs commissioner in a marital dispute five years ago.

Makandar’s Role Comes To The Fore

Meanwhile, police investigation also revealed that Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad, both accused of acting as a middleman and facilitating financial transactions between the accused doctors of Sassoon General Hospital and the father of the juvenile driver, were present at the hospital where the alleged evidence tampering happened.

It said that Makandar, also a close aide of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA Sunil Tingre, who is with the Ajit Pawar faction of the party, received a call on the day of the accident asking him to ‘Help Vishal’.

The ‘caller’ then requested to make a call to Dr Taware

Also in police custody, in a separate case, are the teenager’s parents who are accused in a case pertaining to destruction of evidence.

Cops are also probing whether the parents of the minor suspect tampered with evidence by replacing the original blood sample with the mother’s, potentially destroying the original sample.

They told the court there is a strong possibility the parents of the juvenile destroyed the original blood samples. They told the court that this merited custodial interrogation following which the court extended the police custody of the parents till June 14.

Realtor Vishal Agrawal, the accused teen’s father, and mother Shivani were arrested in the case for their suspected role in swapping blood samples of the juvenile, who was allegedly drunk at the time of the May 19 crash.

Shivani Agarwal was arrested on June 1 after revelation that the boy’s blood samples were replaced with hers. Her husband Vishal Agrawal was arrested for allegedly being involved in destruction of evidence.

Besides the Agrawal couple, Ashpak Makandar was also produced before the court on Monday.

The minor boy is in an observation home.