Bengaluru: When Ola cab driver Somashekhar got a booking for going to Bengaluru’s Adugodi to Dommasandra on Friday night, little did he know that it would turn out to be the worst experience of his life. The four men who boarded his cab at 10.30pm robbed him off all his money, thrashed him and asked his wife to strip for them on a video call and took screenshots of it.
The distance from Adugodi to Dommasandra is about 22km. When the cab carrying the passengers neared the destination at 10.30pm, the men asked Somashekhar to go further towards their home. When he drove a little further, the men allegedly beat him, snatched the car key and started driving.
"They drove for around 100km. They asked for all my money. I had Rs 9,000 in my bank account. They wanted more and asked me to ask friends to send more. I had Rs20,000 rupees in my Paytm account. I called a relative, sent the money to him via Paytm and asked him to transfer the money to me in my bank account, which these men withdrew," said Somashekhar.
"Midway, they had halted for about 30 minutes and videocalled my wife. They asked her to strip and took screenshots of it. They snatched away my phone too," he added.
Somashekhar was taken to a lodge in Channapatna in Ramanagara District on Saturday morning where he excused himself to go the washroom and escaped by jumping out of the toilet window.
He went to a nearby police station and narrated his ordeal but by the time Channapatna police reached the spot, the men had fled. A case has been registered at Adugodi police station.
Calling it an “extremely unfortunate incident”, an Ola spokesperson told News 18: "We deeply regret the harrowing experience the driver-partner and his family have allegedly been put through. We strongly condemn such acts of assault and have blacklisted the customer’s Ola account immediately on the complaint being registered with us.”
The spokesperson added: “We are in touch with the driver-partner to extend support to him, and have been assisting the investigating authorities with all necessary information. We hold our driver-partners in high regard for the work they do as entrepreneurs and stand by them against humiliation or intimidation of any kind.”
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