Shocking news coming from Bengaluru city is that a woman who booked a Rapido ride faced a horrifying nightmare of sexual harassment. The incident took place in the Southern part of Bangalore City on Friday where a woman for reaching home had booked a Rapido bike taxi.
The victim in this case is Athira Purushothaman. She had been forced to book the bike taxi as she got all other autos rickshaws canceling out the ride. The victim was getting back to her home from the protest of Manipur violence that happened in Town Hall.
Through her Twitter account, she had explained the full incident. She tweeted that the assigned bike in the Rapido app was different from the bike which came to the pickup. When she asked about the different bike the Rapido driver reasoned that the assigned bike is under repair. After reaching near a remote area the driver started riding the bike with one hand and started behaving inappropriately (masturbating). Due to fear, she remained silent throughout the ride and asked the Rapido driver to drop her off 200 meters before her home location. But the trouble didn’t end there, the Rapido driver started to call and message her through WhatsApp. Since she paid for the ride through a UPI transaction, the Rapido driver got the victim’s number easily.
Athira Purushothaman also shared the screenshot of the chat which came from the Rapido driver. So she blocked him on WhatsApp but the weird Rapido driver was calling her from many other numbers.
Soon the tweet of Athira went viral and Bengaluru Police noticed and responded to her tweet saying “We have informed to @sjparkps to take necessary action in this regard, Please DM your contact number”.
On Saturday morning the case was registered at the SJ Park Police Station and later the case was moved to the Electronic City police station. Around 2 pm the suspect Kuruvettappa got arrested and charged with Section 354A IPC (Sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment).
This is not the first time several cases like this have been reported against Rapido drivers. Another woman from Bengaluru also faced sexual harassment from a Rapido driver where she was forced to jump off from a running bike taxi after she was groped. A Case was registered against the Rapido driver and got arrested.
