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Dreadful journeys

Women passengers are reporting an alarming rise in harassment by cab drivers.

Cases of harassment by Uber and Ola drivers are on the rise. Recently, Ola cab driver Kandukuri Naga Madhu Kiran was arrested for molesting a woman passenger. Shockingly, he later revealed that he had raped a 10-year-old girl in October 2017 and he often attempted to force himself on women. The Hyderabad police had previously arrested an Uber driver for masturbating in the car with woman passenger, while in another case, a woman was harassed during a Ola Share Trip.

About the harassment she faced in an Ola trip recently, artist Sravanthi Juluri says, “Narrating this incident gives me the creeps. I was travelling with my son and a lady friend in an Ola cab. I did not suspect anything strange in the driver’s behaviour until I told him to make a quick stop enroute to my destination. Shockingly, both the rear doors had the child lock on and I wasn’t able to get out.”

Sravanthi continues, “The driver refused to remove the child lock even after I insisted several times. Instead, he started harassing both of us ladies. Even after we got off the car, he stalked us and got abusive. I was lucky to have exited the car. I urge female passengers to be safe and ensure that the child lock is not on.”

Sravanthi JuluriSravanthi Juluri

Actress Priyanka Jawalkar, too, had a horrifying experience during an Uber ride. “I had taken an Uber at night recently and insisted that the driver take the route that I was comfortable with. However, he kept arguing with me throughout the journey.” “I felt pretty unsafe. I had to warn him saying I’d call the police but he didn’t seem to care. Ironically, Uber doesn’t even have a proper customer care unit in place,” Priyanka says.

Actress Priyanka JawalkarActress Priyanka Jawalkar

While women consider the share rides to be safer, it looks like that’s not the case always. As Rebecca Benny, a B.Com graduate and former employee with HSBC, tells us, “I took an Ola Share from HiTec City and I was the last drop. While the driver is supposed to take the route the map shows, this driver took a detour. I started panicking and contemplated jumping out of the cab! He probably realised that and changed the route. I felt unsafe throughout the journey and never took an Ola for a long time. Ironically, he asked me to give him a five star rating when I got down from the cab. He was arrogant.”

Rebecca BennyRebecca Benny

Swastika Das, another commuter says, “I recently travelled to Bhubaneshwar from Hyderabad. I booked an Uber at the airport and called the driver to check his status. I found him rude. Once in the cab, I saw him being rude to another passenger.” She adds, “He didn’t help me with my luggage and instead made a huge scene when I requested him to drop me closer to my destination. The overall experience was quite bad and I gave him one star.”

Swastika’s ordeal didn’t end there. She narrates, “Almost an hour later, I got a call from him, asking how dare I give him such a low rating. When I told him he was behaving unprofessionally, he threatened to lodge a reverse complaint against me, telling Uber that I was trying to entice him! I was flabbergasted to hear all this and frightened that he had seen my house and even had my number. It wasn’t easy to contact the customer care number for Uber and I had to write an email. While they assured me of my safety and said that action would be taken, the experience was horrible.”

Ola and Uber speak up
With so many cases of harassment reported, what do the cab aggregators have to say?

Says an Ola spokesperson, “We focus on three pillars of verification before we appoint a driver, which includes a criminal background check. But if a customer faces any untoward incident, there are features on the app to send messages to a police station or other emergency number, like the SOS button. If a complaint is registered against a driver, we suspend the driver with immediate effect. We encourage customers to file cases if they face any such incident. Only after police clearance, we take the driver back on. While training, we don’t encourage our drivers to use the child lock system unless a child is travelling alone.”

An Uber spokesperson says, “The safety of our riders and driver-partners is of paramount importance to us. For riders, we have incorporated several safety features in the app to ensure a safe, reliable and convenient travel. These include the ability to see your driver’s details in advance, GPS tracking, share my ride feature, an emergency button which helps riders directly dial 100 and an internal response team to ensure passenger safety.”

“We are conscious about onboarding driver-partners with valid documents, after a comprehensive background check and the mandatory soft skill training. Riders and driver-partners can see each other’s first name and rating before the trip begins. Drivers are also periodically required to take a selfie before going online to drive with Uber to make sure the driver on the account matches with the driver behind the wheel. If the face doesn’t match, we block the driver from accepting rides,” the spokesperson continues.

About the lack of a proper customer care number, Uber says, “In India, the Uber rider app features an emergency button that can be used in the case of an emergency. Upon being pressed, it will ask the rider to dial the police. It also alerts the Uber incident response team, which connects back to the rider in a short time. In case you are unable to access the emergency button due to poor network conditions, we encourage riders to call the police helplines for immediate support.”

— With inputs from Shweta Watson, Pranita Jonnalagedda and Reshmi Chakravorty

( Source : Deccan Chronicle. )
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