PUNE police on Saturday arrested the grandfather of the 17-year-old involved in a car crash here that killed two persons while claiming that both the teenager’s father and grandfather put pressure on the family’s driver to take blame for the accident by offering him money and giving threats. The teenager’s grandfather Surendra Agarwal was arrested for ‘illegal confinement’ of the driver, and a court subsequently remanded him in police custody till May 28. The minor’s father, in judicial custody in another case registered in connection with the May 19 accident, too was named in the First Information Report. While seeking custody of Surendra Agarwal in the sessions court on Saturday, the prosecution said the police had recovered DVR (digital video recorder) of CCTV footage from the house of the accused, and the probe indicated that the footage was tampered with. The court was also informed about past offences registered against him at police stations in Kondhwa, Bundgarden in Pune and another at Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra.

 

“After the accident, the driver gave a statement at the Yerawada police station that he was at the wheel.... But it was revealed that the teen was driving the car,” Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar told reporters. After the driver left the Yerawada police station, the teenager’s father, realtor Vishal Agarwal and his grandfather whisked him in a car to his house on the premises of their bungalow, confiscated his phone and confined him there, the senior police official said. “He was pressured to give a statement to police as per their directions,” Kumar said, adding that the driver was offered gifts and cash for owning up the crash of the Porsche driven by the teenager, and also threatened. The Agarwal family offered to pay the driver “any amount he quoted,” the Commissioner said, adding that his wife reached the place the next day and freed him. “The driver was frightened. He was summoned and his statement was recorded on Thursday (May 23). After corroboration of facts, an offence was registered against the juvenile’s father and grandfather (on the driver’s complaint),” Kumar said.