Pune: The two policemen, who helped drug mafia Lalit Patil to escape from the Sassoon Hospital and pretended that he ran away from their custody, have been dismissed from the service. Natharam Bharat Kale and Amit Suresh Jadhav are the names of the sacked policemen.
Additional Commissioner of Police Arvind Chawariya issued the orders in this regard.
Kale and Jadhav were posted as the Court Company. They were supposed to keep the vigil at the Sassoon Hospital ward, where jail inmates are admitted for treatment. Lalit Patil was booked for a drug haul at the Sassoon Hospital. However, they neglected their duty. It was found during a probe that Kale and Jadhav had helped Patil escape.
It was seen in the CCTV footage that Kale had followed Patil in a nearby hotel. In 2014, Kale was booked for forcing his wife to abort their child when she was pregnant. A case was registered against him at the Walchandnagar Police Station.
Amit Jadhav had helped the drug racketeer escape and then contacted the driver, Dattatraya Doke, of Vinay Arhana, the other accused in the case. Jadhav and Kale were captured clapping each other in a CCTV footage near the Sassoon Hospital canteen. Earlier, Jadhav had stayed away from his duty for 59 days without the permission of his superiors. He was also suspended in a case registered at the Mundhwa Police Station in 2022.
They were recently arrested for their role in the drug mafia Lalit Patil escape case and were remanded in judicial custody. They have been dismissed from the services for maligning the image of the police force.
