Hyderabad: The driver of an Uber cab was allegedly masturbating while driving a customer to the airport. The customer, a 25-year-old techie from Delhi, took to Facebook to publicly shame the cab driver for his actions.
The incident, which took place at about 7.40 am on Thursday on the Outer Ring Road, left the woman feeling helpless as she had no option but to continue the ride as the ORR was deserted at the time.
“He slowed down the car to about 50 kmph and kept glancing at the rear view mirror. After five minutes I realised what he was doing,” she said in her Facebook post.
She added that she began screaming at the driver and asking him to stop the car. He stopped only after repeated threats. She then clicked a picture of his and told him that she would go to the cops.
The customer is a native of Delhi who recently moved to the city for work. She was on her way to the airport to take a flight back home for Diwali at the time of the incident.
Speaking to this paper, the techie said that she thought that Hyderabad was much safer than Delhi, but she no longer believed so.
The victim contacted a women’s helpline upon landing in Delhi. “They could not transfer the call to the Hyderabad unit. I tried filing an FIR at the Safdarjung police station in Delhi, but they refused to accept it since the incident happened in Hyderabad,” she said.
The woman is attempting to file an FIR online, and she has also written to the Hyderabad police. “The Hyderabad police said that the complaint had been forwarded to the Cyberabad police, but I have received no response since then. Once I reach Hyderabad I will file a formal complaint,” she said.
The woman also called out Uber’s “non-existent driver verification system”. She said that two executives from Uber got in touch with her and informed her that the driver had been fired.
A representative of Uber said, “What’s been described has no place in our company. The driver partner’s access to the Uber app has been barred.”
SHE team waits for complaint
Members of Hyderabad’s She Teams say that they will wait for the complainant to return to the city and file a formal complaint before taking action against the driver.
This incident has happened at a time when the #MeToo campaign is at its height, with thousands of women sharing their stories of harassment and abuse on social media. The 25-year-old has also made a mention of this in her post.
“Two days back I was hopeful as I, along with hundreds of women I know, chose to speak about sexual harassment. Today I shudder to think of how many of those #MeToo statuses were because of the same vile men who repeated their actions only because we were too scared to speak up,” she posted.
