Yet another incident, highlighting the poor safety mechanisms in ride-hailing taxis, has come to light. A father was beaten and looted by an Ola cab driver and his accomplices while coming from Jaipur to Delhi with his daughter.
The gory incident was reported by an Ola customer’s wife Shweta Jangbir. Shweta’s husband was on her way back from Jaipur to Delhi, in an Ola cab with his 11 year old daughter.
As the driver did not have a driving license or any other valid ID proof the husband raised an alarm because he felt unsafe sitting in the cab. The driver reacted by calling some goons and beating up the husband, rupturing his eardrum, robbing him.
NewsMobile contacted Ola for its response over the incident, “We have terminated the driver and an inquiry is on,’’ When asked was the driver ‘security certified’ the spokesperson said that we have been verifying the antecedents of all the drivers and the driver provided a different version of the story”.
“Ola strongly disapproves such behaviour and has immediately off-roaded the driver. The said process also includes removing the driver access to the platform. We are providing all the necessary support to the customer. We urge our driver partners and customers to treat each other with dignity and respect at all times “. Ola Spokesperson
NewsMobile also spoke to the victim’s wife, Shweta Jangir who had reported the entire incident, “My husband’s ear is 70% ruptured due to the blood clot and damage to it and the doctors are saying that complete repair of the ear is not possible and that the man will lose some percentage of hearing, how much it is, that they are yet to figure out.”
“When we told Ola of the incident, in the first place it was answered by one executive and then the line got transferred to another. The only support that Ola could offer us was to ban the driver. They told me that we have banned the driver and the line got disconnected. Since then, there is not revert or any word from the Ola team.”
The man cancelled the Ola trip and booked an Uber. When the Uber driver arrived, he tried to save the man, however, he was told to back off else he would get killed. He then took the daughter in the cab and locked the cab from inside to save her from the goons.
The lacuna in safety measures in these taxis is highlighted by the fact that the husband called Ola support when he discovered that the driver did not have the required identification. The support asked him to get off the cab and cancel the ride. When he was about to do as instructed, the goons surrounded him and refused to return his luggage.
After the entire incident, the family filed a complaint against the driver with Ola. Ola washed their hands off the incident by saying that they will ban the driver from getting any more rides.
Though the 11-year-old daughter who witnessed the incident managed to escape unhurt, the entire family, in fact, is traumatised and are still waiting for a response from the Ola support team to take an action.
