Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Saturday said that baseless allegations are being made against Pune MLA Sunil Tingre linking him to the Porsche crash that left two software engineers dead. Ajit said he did not “make any phone calls to the Pune CP about the case.”
These remarks come in the wake of allegations that Tingre had intervened to ensure that the juvenile got favourable treatment from police after the accident. The Pune MLA belongs to the Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and represents the Vadgaon Sheri assembly constituency in Pune city.
When asked about Tingre’s name popping up in connection with the case, Pawar told reporters, “Sunil Tingre is an MLA of the area where the incident took place. Whenever such incidents take place, the local MLA often visits the site. Did Sunil Tingre try to suppress the matter? The allegations against him are baseless.”
When asked if he had called up Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar after this incident, Pawar said, “I often call the commissioner of police over multiple issues but I haven’t made a single call to him in this case.” Two IT professionals were killed in the early hours of May 19 in Kalyani Nagar in Pune after a Porsche allegedly being driven by the minor, who the police claim was drunk, rammed into their two-wheeler.
Pawar said that Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, who heads the home department, had instructed the Pune police the day after the accident to carry out an intensive probe. “Even the chief minister (Eknath Shinde) has given the right instructions. Action was taken against those police officials who initially delayed the procedure. Those from Sassoon General Hospital who were involved in the case have also faced police action,” he added.
In the Porsche case, the minor has been sent to an observation home till June 5, while his father, realtor Vishal Agarwal, and grandfather Surendra Agarwal have been arrested for allegedly kidnapping the family’s driver and putting pressure on him to take the blame.
Police have also arrested two doctors and a staffer from the Sassoon hospital for allegedly swapping the minor’s blood samples with those of his mother to show that he was not drunk at the time of the accident. In the latest action, the teenager’s mother was arrested.
(With agency inputs)
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