In an incident that has caused considerable worry among employees of Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram, an Uber driver was taken into custody for sexually harassing his passenger.
The Uber driver identified as Santhosh Kumar was taken into custody and released after a case was taken against him for misbehaving with a woman. The women forum of Prathidhwani, a socio-cultural organisation of Technopark employees, had lodged a complaint with the Kazhakuttam Cyber City Police on Monday.
The incident took place on 13 June when the employee was traveling to her home in Jagathy at 7:30 in the night.
The driver then misbehaved with her. When she yelled, he stopped the car at a nearby petrol pump. “The driver without any expression, apologised and left,” it reads.
Magi YV, Convener, Prathidhwani Women’s Forum told TNM:
“We won’t be able to take a decision to boycott Uber. Here in the city, there is a gender bias, women are not expected to walk alone at odd hours. Since we have to work during various shifts we are forced to choose between any mode of commutation available to us. But in this case, it was not even ‘late’. Even at that time a woman was not safe.”
She added that many women feared to talk about such instances for the fear of sensationalism and lack of support. She said:
Rajeev Krishnan, Secretary, Prathidhwani, says that the organisation has decided to take up such issues even if the victims were not willing to come forward. He added:
However, Assistant Commissioner (Kazhakuttam Cyber City) A Pramod Kumar told TNM that the accused was let off as the woman was not willing to go ahead with the complaint. “We charged him with a petty case,” he said.
(This article was originally published on The News Minute and has been republished with permission.)
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