“Akdom chup! Toke kidnap kore rape kore debo” (Shut up, or I’ll rape you).” These are the words said by an Uber Cab Driver to a 27-year-old woman. The woman from Jadavpur University booked an app-cab along with her friend at JD block in Salt Lake at 10 pm on Monday.
Everything went well until her friend got down near Aranya Bhavan. As soon as her friend got down, the driver started speeding the car and took a left where he didn’t need to. He continued going in wrong directions and in wrong routes.
“The lanes were deserted so I insisted on taking the main road. He agreed and continued to drive till FD block, where he again tried to enter a lane on the left,” the woman said. When she asked about why he was changing the lane, the driver replied saying the lane would save time.
He went on arguing with her about the route and then drove past her destination point. This sign alarmed the woman and she said the driver to stop the car. But suddenly, he flew into a rage. He said, “Shut up or I’ll rape you.” He probably thought that one sentence would get him laid.
The woman then jumped out of the moving car. She attacked him, landing kicks on his shin and the back of his knees as 27 years old was in no mood to be a victim. “I had taken self-defence lessons in school around 15 years ago and all that training suddenly came in handy. I remembered that I had to hit him hard on his shin bone to stop him and kick the back of his knees to make him fall,” she told.
The driver was arrested soon after she made her police complaint. The driver was identified as Santu Parmanik. When the Uber was consulted about the incident, they said the cab driver was “suspended”. The woman’s lawyer Saumyajit Raha said that Parmanik has been charged under IPC 341 (wrongful restraint), 354 (assault or criminal force on a woman to outrage her modesty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
Uber has given us the following response w.r.t the issue: “We have shared the driver and trip details with the police and will continue to support investigations as required. The driver has been blocked from using our platform. The background check conducted on the driver indicates no prior criminal record.”