BENGALURU: A tale of assault posted by a woman on Facebook has thrown the focus on violence by auto drivers again.
While most incidents include threats of violence, this woman was reportedly hit four times by an irate auto driver after she asked him why he was asking for Rs 30 over the meter fare.
Divya Sharma, who works for a multimedia company and wrote about her experience on Thursday, drew the attention of several hundred Facebook users who left scathing comments.
Aggregator Ola Cabs, with whom the driver had registered, faced their ire. But Divya said she just flagged down the auto, and not booked it through the Ola app.
Faced with outrage, Ola promptly said it had sacked the driver.
“We have terminated the said driver from the Ola platform. Though this incident did not happen on a ride booked through the Ola app, we have zero tolerance for such behaviour,” it said.
Ola also said it was working with the customer “to share all driver information, so as to help her report this incident to the authorities”.
The post by Divya says the auto driver abused her verbally and asked her to ‘get out’ when she asked him why he was charging Rs 30 extra.
Divya called the police helpline 100 when he forcibly tried to drag her out of his vehicle. While she was on the call, he started hitting her repeatedly. Divya said the police called her back and asked her to go to the police station to file a complaint.
No complaint had been filed till late on Thursday.
Attempts to reach Divya for a comment were also not successful.