Passengers Assault, Rob Cab Driver, Force Wife To Strip On Video Call

A driver, working for the ride-sharing firm Ola, was robbed and thrashed by four passengers in the Indian city of Bangalore on Friday. The passengers then asked the driver’s wife to strip for them on a video call.

Somashekhar, the driver, received a booking for going from Bengaluru’s Adugodi to Dommasandra. When he reached the pickup point, the four men boarded the cab and asked him to drop them at another destination.

When the cab was about to reached the location, they assaulted the driver and robbed him off all his money.

"They drove for around 100km. They asked for all my money. I had 9,000 INR ($124) in my bank account. They wanted more and asked me to ask friends to send more. I had 20,000 INR ($284) in my Paytm account. I called a relative, sent the money to him via Paytm and asked him to transfer the money to me in my bank account, which these men withdrew," the driver said, local news channel News 18 reported.

They then called his wife and forced her to strip.

"Midway, they had halted for about 30 minutes and video called my wife. They asked her to strip and took screenshots of it. They snatched away my phone too," he said.

The men abducted the driver and took him to a lodge. Somashekhar managed to escape by jumping out of the toilet window Saturday morning and rushed to the nearest police station to narrate the horrific incident. However, by the time the police reached the lodge, the men had fled, India.com reported.

“This is an extremely unfortunate incident and we deeply regret the harrowing experience the driver-partner and his family have allegedly been put through. We strongly condemn such acts of assault and have blacklisted the customer’s Ola account immediately on the complaint being registered with us. We are in touch with the driver-partner to extend support to him, and have been assisting the investigating authorities with all necessary information. We hold our driver-partners in high regard for the work they do as entrepreneurs and stand by them against humiliation or intimidation of any kind,” an Ola spokesperson said.

In an unrelated incident in June this year, an Ola cab driver allegedly molested and forced a woman passenger to strip in Bangalore. The driver then took pictures of the passenger on phone and even threatened to call his friends and get her raped.

Police said Arun V, the driver, diverted from the scheduled location, the airport, midway and then closed all the doors and windows. When the passenger raised an alarm, he threatened her. He then molested her and took photos. He then dropped her at the airport and warned her about circulating the photos if she told anybody about the incident.

"After reaching the airport she complained through mail to our commissioner that such an incident has happened. Based on the mail transaction, we immediately registered an FIR andarrested the driver and seized the car," additional commissioner of police Seemanth Kumar Singh said at the time, Outlook India reported.