Ola driver masturbated in taxi, says India woman

A woman has alleged that a driver linked to App based taxi service Ola masturbated when she was travelling in the vehicle in Delhi last week. The incident is the latest in a string of controversies involving app based taxi services in India.

The woman, according to a report in Hindustan Times works as a creative strategist for a Mumbai-based digital and social media consultancy firm. She had called Olacabs on July 2 to take her from Saket in south Delhi to Faridabad in Haryana. Olacabs sent a TaxiForSure vehicle driven by Devinder Kumar. TaxiForSure is Olacabs’ partner company which it acquired for $200m in March this year.

The woman described the incident through a Facebook post and Tweets which was picked up by the media. The woman said an update on her Facebook page that she had to request the driver thrice to lower the volume of the music as she was talking over phone. “As I was roughly 25 minutes from my destination, the driver got impatient and started driving brashly. Moreover he seemed extremely restless, anxious, and kept mumbling something to himself. I discontinued my call and asked him to drive properly in the most polite manner possible,” the woman wrote.

“I was about to make another call when I noticed that he was masturbating while driving. He had little control over the wheel as well as his perverseness. He had a smile on his face that will haunt me for nights to come. A #PSYCHOTIC man with a severe chemical imbalance for a driver is nothing but serious,” she added.

A TaxiForSure spokesperson was quoted by Hindustan Times as saying that the driver has been sacked. However, the woman has said to the newspaper that she is dissatisfied with the response of the firm.

There have been several such controversies related to App-based taxi aggregator services in India.

In December last year, the Delhi government banned app based taxi services after a woman executive in the capital alleged that the driver of her Uber cab had raped her after she fell asleep in the backseat of the car. The Uber cab driver is still facing trial in the case and has denied the charges.

Ola had however managed to convince the Delhi High Court to lift the ban following which app-based taxi services had resumed in the capital.