No background check was done on the driver
A woman in Delhi was raped in an Uber cab which she had hired using the app
New Delhi: New Delhi woke to another heinous news on Saturday morning as a 25-year-old woman was raped in a Uber cab that she reportedly hired from Vasant Vihar area after returning from a Gurgaon hotel party.
A Uber cab driver has been by the police.
Incidentally, he was earlier arrested in a 2011 sexual assault case. Shiv Kumar Yadav served 7 months in Tihar jail but he was acquitted by the court. Yadav also did not possess a Delhi driving permit.
According to the police complaint, the victim who works as an MNC employee in Gurgaon, had finished her shift at 7 pm on Friday after which she attended a dinner party at a restaurant there with her friends.
Her friends dropped her in Vasant Vihar area from where she hired an Uber cab at around 9.30 pm and in the way, dozed off on the back seat of the cab, the police said citing the complaint.
The woman woke up only to find that she was being raped while the doors were locked and the car was stopped at a secluded place between Sarai Rohilla and Indralok, said the complaint. She
The driver then went on to threaten that he would kill her and also sexually assault her with a rod if she shouted. The driver then dropped her home, warning her not to inform police or anyone or he would kill her.
According to the police, the woman had managed to click the picture of the cab from her cell phone as the cab driver sped off after dropping her near her home.
A case has been registered at Sarai Rohilla police station under Sections 376 (rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC.
The incident poses a big question mark on the reliability of Uber cabs that boast of ensuring passengers’ safety as its highest priority and claim to hire “licensed driver-partners to provide a safe transportation option”. According to reports, there was no GPS system in the cab and no background check had been done on the driver.
Expressing regret over the incident, Uber cabs issued a statement saying they were “deeply disturbed” by the crime and had suspended the driver’s account immediately.
We are deeply disturbed by the reported incident. Our thoughts are with the victim. We are actively and fully cooperating with authorities.
— Uber Delhi (@Uber_Delhi) December 6, 2014
In a statement, Uber spokeswoman Evelyn Tay said that the company was working with the police to help in the investigation.
“Our thoughts are with the victim of this terrible crime… We will assist them in any way we can. It is also our policy to immediately suspend a driver’s account following allegations of a serious incident, which we have done,” read the statement.
“Safety is Uber’s highest priority and in India, we work with licensed driver-partners , with layers of safeguards such as driver and vehicle information, and ETA-sharing to ensure there is accountability and traceability of all trips that occur on the Uber platform,” the statement added.
