New Delhi: A Delhi court has convicted an Uber cab driver of raping a young woman passenger last year.

On December 5, Shiv Kumar Yadav had sexually assaulted the woman, a finance executive working in Gurgaon, while she on her way back home in Inderlok in northwest Delhi.

Yadav was arrested two days later from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh.

The court today convicted Yadav, 32, for offences including endangering a woman’s life while raping her, abducting and criminally intimidating her. Yadav faces a maximum punishment of life imprisonment. Arguments on sentencing will be heard on Friday.

The woman, who had hired the cab by using the taxi service’s app, had, in her statement, said that she fell asleep in the cab on her way home from dinner. She said she was then taken to a deserted area not far from her home where the driver raped her and threatened to violate her with an iron rod, a barbarous tactic used in the fatal gang-rape of a young student on a moving bus two years ago in the capital.

The incident had sparked massive outrage across the country, renewing debate on the safety of women in the national capital. The Delhi government later banned the Uber in the national capital.

Uber, with which Shiv Kumar Yadav had been registered, had drawn fire for failing to deliver on its promise of safety. It had not conducted any background checks on Yadav, who had at least five cases against him – two under the Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act and the rest relating to sexual assaults.

(Agencies)