Uber Driver Accused Of Assaulting Woman In Bengaluru For Onboarding Wrong Cab

Ride-hailing giant Uber is once again in the news for the wrong reasons as one of its cab drivers has been accused of assaulting a woman in Bengaluru for getting into the wrong cab by mistake. 

The incident took place in a housing society in the Bhoganahalli area under the Bellandur police station’s jurisdiction.

The shocking incident was brought to the notice of the cab aggregator by the woman’s husband Ajay Agrawal on X (formerly Twitter). In his post, Agrawal said that his wife and son had booked an Uber cab for a visit to a hospital with a pickup location. 

However, they boarded a wrong cab, following which its driver came out of the car and physically assaulted the woman. Following this, the neighbours rushed to help the woman and his son and caught hold of the driver. The incident was also captured on a security camera. 

Expressing his grievances on the matter, Agrawal said, “Uber, with the latest tech and you are stated to focus on security we could not reach you.”

In response to the tweet, Uber apologised to Agrawal and assured that necessary actions would be taken against the accused driver. 

Inc42 has reached out to Uber for a comment on the development. The story will be edited on receiving a response from the company.

On Thursday (August 10), the police said that the accused driver was identified as a resident of the Gadag district of the state and was arrested. 

This is not the first time when Uber, which was earlier involved in tussle with multiple state governments like Maharashtra and Karnataka over licence, finds itself involved in such a controversy.

Earlier this year, an Uber autorickshaw driver was arrested after he allegedly tried to molest an IT professional in Pune. Before that, a female passenger accused Uber of not responding to her distress calls when she was allegedly attacked by robbers in Delhi.

Besides Uber, other cab, auto and motorbike aggregators have also been accused of not caring about the safety of their customers.

In July, a woman accused a driver of bike service aggregator Rapido of sexual harassment. 

In April this year, another woman also accused a Rapido driver of harassment and molestation. The incident took place minutes away from Rapido’s headquarters in the city. It was captured on a security camera and the woman was seen jumping off a moving bike.  

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.