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Bengaluru Police Have Arrested An Ola Driver For Making Passenger Strip For Photos And Molesting Her

The driver also threatened to kill her.
Bloomberg via Getty Images

After a complaint registered by a 26-year-old woman, the Bengaluru police has arrested a driver affiliated with cab aggregator Ola for allegedly molesting the woman and threatening to kill her.

NDTV reported that the woman, who is an architect, had called the cab to go to the airport to take a flight to Mumbai on June 1 at around 2 am, when the driver took a wrong route telling her it was faster.

Reports suggest that the driver took her to a desolate spot, locked her inside the cab and forced her to strip. He also took photos of her to circulate on WhatsApp.

The driver, identified as Arun, allegedly threatened gangrape when and warned the woman to not try to call a anyone.

According to a report in The News Minute, the police said, "The girl begged him to let her go and promised to never speak of the incident. Arun then dropped her to the airport after he was convinced of her pleas. He called her twice after she entered the airport but she blocked his number."

The woman, who is from Mangaluru and works in Mumbai, emailed her complaint to the police after speaking to her parents.

Seemanth Kumar Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police, East Sub-division, told Hindustan Times, "Once we received the mail, we decided to lodge a suo motu case against the driver and arrested him within hours on Saturday. The victim was very courageous in approaching the police."

The police arrested Arun on Monday. He was also produced before a magistrates court that sent him to four days of judicial custody.

The accused has been charged with several sections of the Indian Penal Code including Sections 354 (sexual assault),354(B) (intent to disrobe), 342 (wrongful restraint), 307 (attempt to murder), 506 (criminal intimidation).

After the allegations Ola put out a statement. PTI reported Ola as saying, "We regret the unfortunate experience the customer had during the ride. We have zero tolerance for such incidents and the driver has been blacklisted from the platform as an immediate action upon receiving the complaint. Safety of our customers is our top priority and we are extending our full support to the police authorities in their investigation."

A spokesperson from Ola also told Huffpost India saying, "The driver-partner in question holds a valid police verification check that confirms no criminal cases have been recorded against him. This is a mandatory process for all driver-partners who operate on our platform."

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect the statement sent by Ola to HuffPost India after the article was first published.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.