Mumbai: App-based taxi service provider Uber suspended one of its Mumbai drivers after he was accused of molesting a woman passenger on Wednesday night.
The accusation was made by Viola Wadia, from Pali Hill area of Mumbai. Wadia, in a Facebook post on Thursday, said her friend – a foreign national – was at her home when she booked a cab through Uber to travel to Seven Bungalows in Versova.
She alleged that the driver first asked her friend to “come sit in the passenger seat up front with him", but when she refused, he pulled over the car, saying the visibility through the back screen was not clear and he needs to clean it.
“He came to the back seat under the pretext of cleaning the window from inside and proceeded to put his hand on her thigh and tried to feel her up,” she said in the post.
The driver moved off the passenger when she shouted at him and went back to his seat, Wadia alleged, adding her friend managed to "jump off and get home safely.”
On Friday, she mentioned in a comment on her post that Uber suspended the driver permanently and reported him to the Mumbai Drivers Association.
Uber also issued a statement stating that the driver has been suspended and all details related to the trip and the driver were shared with the relevant authorities for official investigation.
Wadia shared a screenshot of the Uber app along with her post, revealing the name of the driver – Shehbaaz.
Last year, an Uber cab driver, identified as Shiv Kumar Yadav, was sentenced to life imprisonment till his natural death for raping a woman executive in his taxi in Delhi in December 2014.
