'Rogue' bike taxi driver arrested

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The police arrested a 27-yearold Rapido driver for allegedly misbehaving with a woman in the city. The accused was identified by the police as Deepak Rao, hailing from Thindlu village on the Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border.

According to sources, the incident took place around 11 pm on April 21 after a 30-year-old architect booked a ride to Indiranagar to visit one of her friends there. The accused Deepak Rao accepted the booking and reached the pickup location.

The woman later alleged that the accused took her phone on the pretext of checking the OTP for starting the ride and changed the drop location from Indiranagar to Doddaballapur without her knowledge. As the woman suspected that the driver was taking her to a wrong location, she asked him about it. However, the driver ignored her and continued to drive the bike at a speed of 60 kmph.

When the woman snatched her phone from the accused, he allegedly snatched it back from her and increased the speed of the bike even more. Furthermore, the rider also tried to grope her, the woman claimed in her statement to the police. Sensing trouble, the woman eventually jumped off the speeding bike near the BMS Institute of Technology and Management (BMSIT) and sustained injuries.

The driver stopped for a few minutes to look back at the woman, but as passers-by and motorists came to her rescue, the accused sped away with her phone. The woman said that the passers-by including a security officer of the BMSIT helped her contact her friends in the city and those in her hometown.

A nearby CCTV camera recorded the incident based on which the police intensified its probe and arrested the accused. Following an investigation by the Yelahanka Upanagara station police, some other peculiar details about the incident came to the fore. The arrested bike driver, Deepak Rao had registered a Honda Activa with the Rapido application but he came to pick the woman up on a different bike.

‘Cops refused to help’

Later, the woman’s friend alleged that the police refused to help her, saying it was a "girlfriendboyfriend problem." The woman alleged that initially she had gone to the Jeevan Bhima Nagar Police Station to lodge a complaint but the cops refused to help her saying that they cannot trace the phone location.

Meanwhile, the accused has been booked for sexual harassment, kidnapping and assaulting a woman with intent to outrage her modesty. Further investigation is underway. Bike taxi services have become an integral part of life for millions of commuters in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. But, the safety of such taxi services has been a serious concern, especially for women passengers.

Recent false complaint on bike driver In November last year, a 21-year -old model and dubbing artiste in the city accused a bike taxi driver of misbehaving with her during a ride. However, the city police later found that the allegations were false and scrapped the case.

What activists think

Speaking to News Trail, Nandini, a women's rights activist said, “Forget about online taxis, women’s safety is not ensured in any form of transportation. The fact that most men see women with lust and as sex toys has not changed even after so many years. What crime did the girl do? Most users, including women, nowadays are forced to opt for bike taxis as autos and cars are not available after certain hours and costs are hefty.

It has become a toxic society that there has come a need for these corporations to appoint women drivers to ensure the comfort of women passengers. If women drivers take on the way like some women auto drivers then female passengers would be comfortable in opting for a ride and be safe. Such molestation of women passengers reflects the lack of regulations these applications have in place.

If women are not safe even after 75 years of Independence, then we must hang our heads in shame as we have, as a society, failed to ensure the safety of our fellow humans. It also shows the government's inability to bring down such incidents by implementing strict laws," she said. Many social media users raised the concern of their safety, saying they need more public transport during the night time to escape being victims of "retarded" men.