BENGALURU: A CEO of a company in Bengaluru was allegedly attacked by a group of cab drivers following an argument over a seat belt, outside Kempegowda International Airport on Monday night. Dave Banerjee, CEO of Fisheye Creative Solutions, said he had to play dead to protect himself from being assaulted by Uber drivers.
He said he had taken an Uber cab from the airport along with two of his colleagues at 9.30pm on Monday.
He had just flown to Bengaluru from Mumbai and was heading to his residence. Dave said he was sitting in the front when he noticed that the seat belt buckle was missing.
“I asked the driver to stop the vehicle so that I could locate it from under the seat. However, he kept driving. I tapped his shoulder and raised my voice and asked him to stop immediately. He stopped and all of us got out of the car. The driver got down and started speaking in Kannada with other drivers who were in the parking lot,” he told Express.
Banerjee said he immediately reported the incident to Uber. He and his colleagues then started walking back towards the Uber zone to get another cab. When they were leaving in another cab, they saw the driver along with 10-15 other drivers checking all the cabs for Banerjee.
“As soon as they saw me, they pulled out my colleagues and tried to drag me out. But I stayed put in the vehicle as I knew they would beat me up. They got in the vehicle from both the back doors and locked it from inside to assault me. For the next 45 minutes they punched and kicked me. I could not find any way to rescue myself, so I acted dead. When there was no response from my end, they got scared and stopped hitting me. My two colleagues then got into the cab and took me home,” he said.
Dave said he will approach the police to file a complaint. Bengaluru International Airport police sources said they had reached out to Banerjee to file a complaint, but they were told that he would come with his lawyer to file a complaint.
Driver-partner’s access to app barred, says Uber
“What’s been described has no place on our app. Safety of our riders is a priority for us at Uber. We have barred the driver-partner’s access to the Uber app. We will support the law enforcement authorities in their investigation in every way possible,” Uber spokesperson said when contacted.