A 17-year-old boy has been granted bail by a district court in Pune, Maharashtra after he allegedly killed two young software engineers while drink driving during the early hours of Sunday (May 19).
The teenager named Vedant Agarwal, son of a famous builder, rammed the Porsche he was driving into a motorbike carrying Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta - both 24-year-old software engineers from Madhya Pradesh. According to the police FIR, Ashwini died on the spot, while Aneesh succumbed to injuries at the hospital. Vedant was accompanied by two others in the car at the time of the accident. He was reportedly returning after celebrating his Class XII results with his friends.
The loss of young lives was saddening enough, however, it was the ludicrous conditions set by the court before granting bail that sparked outrage across the country.
The judge asked the boy to write a 300-word essay on the "effect of road accidents and their solution". Apart from this, he was also asked to work alongside traffic police for 15 days, undergo psychiatric evaluation and treatment, study traffic rules and give a presentation on the same to the Juvenile Justice Board.
The conditions set for bail caused a major uproar amongst citizens with many calling for harsher punishment in such cases.
The family members of the deceased have lashed out at Maharashtra Police for inaction in the case.
Akhilesh Awadhiya, a relative of Aneesh Awadhiya, told a news channel, "According to the new act, the punishment should be seven years. Bail conditions are ridiculous. They are even taught to students of Class 5. He was driving a car worth Rs 3 crore. Just because he is the son of a business tycoon, he was released."
He added, "He (Vedant) is a human bomb. If he is released today, tomorrow he could kill someone and escape. How his father allowed him to drive the car. His parents should be taken to court."
In a recent development, police on Tuesday detained Vedant's father and arrested three executives of two hotels for serving alcohol to the juvenile.
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