Woman tweets about torturous ride from Bengaluru airport, Ola sacks driver

A 35-year-old woman had a frightening experience with an Ola driver after she boarded the cab at the Bengaluru airport on Monday night.
Image of Ola used for representational purpose only.
Image of Ola used for representational purpose only.

BENGALURU: A 35-year-old woman had a frightening experience with an Ola driver after she boarded the cab at the Bengaluru airport on Monday night. Akanksha Hazari, the founder and CEO of a private company in Mumbai, took to Twitter to raise the issue, following which the cab aggregating company said that it has sacked the driver.

The police too replied to her tweets, asking her for details, and later said that her complaint has been forwarded to the Bengaluru International Airport Police Station.

Akanksha tweeted about her ordeal, saying that she boarded the cab at 11.31 pm. The route directed the driver to take the toll road, but he allegedly started driving towards a lonely stretch. When she asked him, he said that he was avoiding the toll road as he had no cash. “The road was a narrow, long and unlit,” her tweet said.

“I asked the driver to please turn around and take the toll gate and follow the route directed by the app,” she said. This is apparently when things went terribly wrong. The driver reportedly became aggressive and asked her to get out of the car. “I protested as it was so dark and all I could see was darkness and few men loitering. I immediately pressed the Ola emergency button and got a callback,” she said.

She explained the situation to the firm’s executive, who spoke to the driver and instructed him to take the highway. The executive also said that he would track the ride.“He promised me that if there is any deviation he would contact me immediately,” Akanksha said.

A few minutes later, the driver started making calls and Akanksha asked him to stop doing that. “I was worried about what if he calls someone to the location and he was speaking in Kannada and I couldn’t understand what he was saying,” she tweeted.

After some time, the driver apparently stopped the car. He continued to make calls. “I was really scared. There was nothing around me,” Akanksha tweeted. “I was waiting for the Ola security officer to call me as he would know that the car has stopped. But I didn’t receive any call.”

She pressed the emergency button almost 10 times, but got no callback. She then called 100 and gave the car number. She couldn’t tell them where she was, and the call got disconnected.

Akanksha then called the Ola customer care again. Though the executive tried to reach the driver, the latter was busy making calls. The executive finally got to talk to the driver, after which he told Akanksha to take the driver’s phone and put it on speaker mode till she was dropped off. She later narrated the incident on Twitter. Ola said the driver has been blacklisted.

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The New Indian Express
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