Mumbai : A taxi driver operating through aggregator Uber has been arrested by the Mumbai police for allegedly harassing and molesting a foreign national who works in a private company in the city. On Wednesday night the victim had gone to 7 Bungalows in Andheri, where she got late. Hence she decided to use the app-based taxi service to return home.
On the way, she was allegedly molested by the driver, who has been identified as Shahbaz. The case was registered at Santa Cruz police station where officials got the relevant details from Uber which has suspended the driver.
Alerting people and police about the incident, the victim’s host posted a facebook message on Thursday evening saying: “Last night an expat girl friend who is currently working in Bombay took an Uber from my house in Pali Hill to 7 Bungalows. She asked us if Uber was safe and all of us jumped to assure her that she was in Bombay and she had nothing to worry about. Unfortunately we were proved wrong because this Uber driver tried to molest her on their way to Versova.”
“He spoke to her in a friendly manner when she first got in and asked her where she was from and made small talk. Later, he said that since the roads in Mumbai are horrible she was welcome to sit in the passenger seat in the front with him. When she refused to move he complained about low visibility through his back screen and told her he was going to pull over to clean it. She was very uncomfortable but allowed him to stop,” the message reads.
“She was surprised when he came to the back seat under the pretext of cleaning the window from the inside and proceeded to put his hand on her thigh and tried to feel her up. She panicked and tried to push him off and only when she started shouting at him did he move off her and go back to his seat. She managed to jump off and get home safely,” her friend writes on his Facebook wall post.
“But what angers me is that this has happened in Bombay! I cannot believe this happened to my friend. This happens because there are no consequences! And Uber? How many of us are using Uber? I’m expecting Uber to deal with this in a way that scares any Uber driver from violating someone. While we are going to make an official police complaint, Uber needs to check the backgrounds of their drivers and have consequences. And as people of this city that has always been progressive when it comes to women, where I feel safe to drive home at 3 am, we cannot keep quiet. That Uber driver should have been stripped and sent home naked so he can feel the shame he deserves!” he concludes.
