The Santacruz police on Friday registered an FIR against a driver, identified as Shehbaaz, employed by cab aggregator Uber for allegedly molesting a passenger, an Italian national, on Thursday night. A Facebook status uploaded by the victim’s friend on Facebook went viral, with over 7000 users sharing it.
According to a friend of the victim, who wrote about the incident on Facebook, the driver was initially friendly, then tried to get her to sit with him in the front seat. When she refused, he made an excuse about needing to clean the rear glass of the car, stopped the vehicle, moved to back seat to clean the glass from the inside, and put his hand on her thigh “and tried to feel her up.” The woman panicked and began shouting, and he moved away. She managed to get out of the car and get home safely.
According to police officials, the incident occurred at around 11:25 pm on Thursday on Juhu Tara Road, Santacruz, when the victim was on her way to Seven Bungalows, Andheri.
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The victim, with some of her friends, went to Khar police in the early hours of Friday, where an FIR was registered for outraging a woman’s modesty under the Indian Penal Code. The case was ater transferred to the Santacruz police, as the incident occurred in their jurisdiction.
An Uber statement said the driver had been suspended and that all details of the trip and the driver were handed over to the police.
A police official confirmed that all information had been obtained from Uber and that investigations are underway to trace and apprehend Sehehbaaz.
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The incident attracted widespread outrage, with people all over the city narrating their own bad experiences with Uber as comments on the Facebook post, which had been shared more than 7700 times by Friday evening.