A woman passenger in Delhi has accused an Uber driver of trying to forcibly “kiss her hand” while driving her to Gurgaon. The accused, Vinod, has been arrested.
“When we reached my destination, he handed me over my two bags and when I asked for the third, he said he wanted to shake hands with me and said “nice to meet you ma’m… I thought he is a good man and so I casually shook hands with him. He then kissed my hand. When I tried to pull back my hand, he held it tightly and forcibly tried to kiss me,” the woman alleged.
“My sister availed your cab service, last night for Gurgaon & your driver Vinod tried to kiss her forcibly & even after registering complaint with you morons there has been no action, no update form your end,” said the woman’s brother in the post, that drew comments of outrage against Uber, which was banned for a short while in Delhi last year after one of its drivers allegedly raped a woman passenger.
He had demanded that Uber take action ragainst the driver. “You people are pathetic, you still don’t have any mechanism in place,” he wrote.
In a statement posted as a comment to the Facebook post, Uber had said that “immediate action has already been taken” against the driver, even as it investigated the complaint. It did not specify what action had been taken.
“Our team immediately reached out to the rider via phone within minutes of receiving the feedback… Uber has a zero-tolerance policy towards inappropriate behaviour and immediate action has already been taken with the driver partner even while the matter is being thoroughly investigated,” the company said.
A first information report (FIR) under section 354 A (molestation) was registered against the driver, Gurgaon Police Commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk said.
Police also said that “officials of Uber have been requested for the relevant information which has been supplied by them”.
“This partner driver has a valid PSV badge and commercial license issued by Delhi authorities. Those require a number of verifications. We also conduct a background screening through our vendor First Advantage,” it Uber said in a statement on Monday night.
In December last year, a 27-year-old finance executive of a Gurgaon-based company alleged that the driver of an Uber cab drove her to a deserted place after she fell asleep in the vehicle and raped her.
Uber’s service was suspended for some time. It has claimed that it has significantly ramped up security measures and set in place mechanisms to ensure passengers’ safety, including more stringent back ground checks for drivers.
