The 17-year-old boy at the wheel of the speeding Porsche that hit a bike in Pune Saturday night, killing a man and a woman, was out on bail 15 hours after he was arrested. His lawyer, Prashant Patil, said a court granted bail to the minor on conditions — he has to work with traffic police in Yerwada for 15 days, write an essay on accidents, undergo treatment for his drinking habit, and take counselling sessions. The accused is the son of a prominent Pune realtor.
Twenty-four-year-olds Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta, both engineers from Madhya Pradesh working in Pune, were returning on a bike after attending a get-together with friends. The Porsche, which eyewitnesses have said was driving at over 200 km per hour and had no number plates, hit the bike. Ashwini was thrown about 20 feet in the air and landed hard, said an eyewitness. Aneesh was thrown at a parked car and suffered serious injuries. Both died on the spot.
“The accident took place around 2.15 am. The car was at full speed. The driver was fleeing after the car hit the bike, but the airbags deployed. He could not see the road and parked the car. And the locals caught them. Besides the driver, there were two other occupants in the car. One of them escaped. The crowd beat up the other two,” said an eyewitness, an autorickshaw operator waiting for a ride.
The eyewitness said police reached the spot in 15 minutes.
The minor, it is learned, was returning with his friends from a pub where they were partying to celebrate clearing their Class 12 exams. He is four months short of turning 18, the minimum age to get a driver’s licence in India.
Following a complaint by a friend of one of the victims, an FIR was registered under sections relating to death by negligence and rash driving. The teenager’s father and the pub that served him alcohol are also likely to be charged, police have said.
Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar said police had urged the court to treat the accused as an adult because this is a “heinous crime” and sought his custody. Police will approach the sessions court against the bail order, he said. “The father of the juvenile accused, who handed over this car without a number plate to him to drive and allowed him to go to a pub, has also been proceeded against. The establishment that served alcohol has also been proceeded against,” he said.
The case is now being investigated by an Assistant Commissioner of Police-level officer, and a “watertight case is being made out,” he said. The police commissioner said it was clear that the boy was driving under the influence of alcohol. Several eyewitnesses have said the teenager and his friends were heavily drunk.
The incident has sparked massive outrage, with many blaming lax laws for deaths due to rash driving and minors on the wheels.
Anurag Kulshrestha, president of an NGO that works for road safety, told sources, “There is no fear of law. In Pune, when authorities tried to enforce the helmet rule, all political parties came out to protest. We are living in an indisciplined society.”
