Staff at a toll booth on the highway to Hyderabad from Bengaluru prevented the abduction of a 25-year-old woman by the driver of a taxi she was travelling around 2 a.m. on Thursday. She had booked the vehicle on aggregator platform Ola
The driver, Suresh, was arrested by the Chikkajala police, who said the woman had booked the taxi from Banaswadi to the Kempegowda International Airport.
The woman told the police that she was scheduled to go to Mumbai on work and booked the cab. However, as the vehicle approached the airport toll gate, the inebriated driver suddenly changed lanes and began driving towards Hyderabad.
“When she started instructing him to go back towards the airport, he refused to stop. He misbehaved with her and told her to keep quiet,” said a police officer.
The woman had the presence of mind to alert the staff at the toll booth by screaming for help. The staff immediately came to her aid. They stopped the car and helped her get out of it.
The police were alerted immediately and they came ind arrested the driver.
“He has been booked for kidnapping and driving under the influence of alcohol. Our initial probe has revealed that the car was registered on Ola by Suresh’s brother. We are waiting for him to become sober so that we can question him,” the police officer said.
The woman alerted her family members and they came and picked her up from the toll booth.
In a statement to mediapersons, an Ola spokesperson said the taxi has been removed from the platform. “We are deeply disturbed to know about the incident. We are also engaging with the police to lend assistance in their ongoing investigations,” he added.
This is the second such incident in a little over a month in Bengaluru. On June 1, an Ola taxi driver was arrested for allegedly molesting a 26-year-old architect who was headed to the airport.
