Shoddy Mobile Cab
By Disha Mashelkar
It is yet another rape case in Delhi which has raised
vociferous furore of the local Delhi-ites! The gory visuals of December 2012
are reminiscent round about, as the ‘rapist’ beat up the 27 year old woman and
allegedly raped her on Friday night in Delhi.
According to newspaper reports, she was working in
Gurgaon’s finance company and after finishing her shift at 7PM had gone out
with her friends. Her friend dropped her for a few miles and later she decided
to book a mobile cab (Uber) from her mobile phone to reach home.
But to her misfortune the driver beat her up and
raped her!
The victim approached the police station on early
Saturday morning. Police couldn’t trace the culprit immediately as there was no
contact number or e-mail address for ‘Uber’ on its web pages, portals and
blogs. After downloading the mobile application and booking the cab, the police
asked the driver to take him to the company headquarters. There he found out
that the entire data base of this (Uber) mobile cab company was based in New
York. Hence to get all the logs of cab being booked in Delhi region had to be
retrieved from New York office.
According to The Indian Express report (on 8
December 2014) although the radio and mobile taxi segment constitutes only 5%
of the Indian taxi market, the segment is witnessing a significant growth with
competition hotting up and new players and technology making an entry every now
and then. Some companies like ‘Ola’ and ‘Meru’ have launched low-cost services.
There are companies like ‘Taxiforsure’ which has signed up normal taxis under
its umbrella. Where a working man spends say suppose Rupees 33 per km, a radio
taxi service offers the running cost per km is around Rupees 20. Being economically feasible these cabs are in
demand and as technology being conducive to it they are quite viable.
Just like ‘Uber’ there are many other mobile cab
services available in India who’s regulatory and operational permits needs to
be checked. Such mobile cabs claim to offer safety to its passengers but with
this above reported incident such ranting is turning into back to square one! Also,
why don’t such international standard mobile cabs company, employ women drivers
which can annihilate the risk of rapes and sexual molestation? In this 21st
century, where we are proud of women walking hand-in-hand with men, in almost
all spheres of life than why not in driving cabs?
‘Uber’ claims that it offers the ‘safest rides on
the road’. This crass statement no more carries any value and with this
shameful incident of alleged rape charges on its driver, this mobile cab
company needs to revise its slogan and stop pontificating its stature. It is a
lesson for all the other mobile cab companies to check on whom they employ as
drivers so as to not to debilitate their reputation in the market.
No doubt, that such a rapist driver deserves the
ignominy and need to be put behind the bars! But will this solve the problem of
increasing rape cases in India?
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