Pune: The police custody of the head of the state-run Sassoon General Hospital's Forensic Medicine Department Dr Ajay Taware, Chief Medical Officer Dr Shrihari Halnor and the hospital staff Atul Ghatkamble, on Thursday, got extended for six days until June 5 in the Pune Porsche car crash case by the Sessions Court. Earlier, the three accused were remanded in police custody till May 30.

Dr Taware, Dr Halnor and Ghatkamble were arrested after the alleged swapping of samples came to light, and were produced before the court as their initial custody ended today.

Seeking their further custody, police said that Dr Halnor did not throw away the juvenile's blood samples - as was believed earlier - but handed them over to someone, and they wanted to recover them.

The Sassoon General Hospital, on Wednesday, proposed the suspension of Dr Taware and sacked another doctor following their arrest for alleged manipulation of blood samples of the juvenile involved in the crash of a Porsche car in the city.

Hospital Proposes To Suspend Dr Taware

Dr Vinayak Kale, the hospital Dean, told reporters that the administration sent a proposal to the state government to suspend Taware immediately after his arrest, while the services of Dr Halnor, who was employed temporarily, were terminated on May 28.

"Action of suspension is taken at the state government's level. A proposal has been sent," he said.

As per a letter given to his office by Pune Police, the accused doctors allegedly hatched the plan to switch the blood samples for financial gains, Dr Kale said.

"After this action (arrest), we took off the charge of HOD, Forensic Medicine from Dr Taware and gave it to a senior professor in the department. Dr Holnar's service was temporary, and it was terminated on May 28," the Dean said.

Ghatkamble, a conservancy employee, has been suspended, he said.

Blood Samples Exchanged with Mother's: Sources

The blood samples of the 17-year-old were replaced with those of a woman in a bid to show that he was not drunk at the time of the accident, police told a court on Thursday.

While the police told the court that they wanted to identify the woman whose blood was used as a replacement, a government source told PTI that she was none other than the juvenile's mother.

A highly-placed source in the Maharashtra public health department, familiar with the probe, told PTI that the blood samples of the teenager's mother were used as a replacement to shield him.

Two IT professionals in their 20s were killed after their motorcycle was hit by a speeding Porsche, allegedly driven by the 17-year-old, in the early hours of May 19 in Pune’s Kalyani Nagar area. According to police, the teenager, son of builder Vishal Agarwal, was drunk at the time. (with PTI inputs)