On February 15, there was a report of an Uber driver physically assaulting a customer and refusing to complete the ride. The driver, Ajit Roy got in touch with G Plus to give his side of the story.
“I want to start from the very beginning. I am a BSCA student and I got a job in 2011. However, since I was trying to prepare for defense, I had to come back to Guwahati. I didn’t have a job while studying so I started to drive for Uber,” said Roy.
He then narrated his side of the story. He started by saying that he had picked up the customer at Kachari Basti, near Assam Police Headquarter and had to drop her to A.T. Road. Once they reached A.T. Road, the customer added another stop using the “multiple location” feature and picked up a friend. Since she had added another stop, Roy agreed to continue the ride. However, the customer insisted that he follow her directions instead of using the route provided by Uber as she had to pick up another friend on the way.
Upon hearing this, Roy refused to continue the ride and said that he would not follow any other directions and would only use the map route given by Uber. He asked her to pay for the trip from Kachari Basti to A.T. Road and said that she could call another Uber at her convenience.
The customer then got furious and got out of the car and said that she wouldn’t pay Roy. She then started calling him names and called people from the neighborhood as they were near her house.
“When all this started happening, I realized that this matter would get out of hand and I did not want to be a part of it so I tried to leave and get in my car. However, a bunch of my guys started to push me and threatened me to pull over my car to the side or that they would break it. I was scared so I agreed. When these guys were pushing me around, the girl was standing next to me and by mistake, my elbow hit her and her phone fell to the ground, but I had no intention of physically assaulting her in any way” said Roy.
After that, he called the police 5-6 times and asked them to come as soon as possible.
“I called them multiple times because you know how it is. People will always listen to the girl, no matter what. No one will listen to the driver even if he is right or innocent. Once the police came, the girl started to run towards them and told them that I was the one harassing her when in fact, I was being harassed by her and the crowd that had gathered there,” he added.
Then all of them had gone to the police station and the customer and her supporters continued trying to threaten and overwhelm Roy. Once the Police OC came, I told him exactly what happened and he told me, “Nowadays, girls have become very bad. You try to stay calm and I know you haven’t done anything.” The police officer then asked him to wait for a while so that things could be sorted out in a civil manner. Roy said he waited for as long as he was told and that the customer had left the police station after creating a ruckus and also called the Uber emergency number and gotten his account blocked.
“Now I am sitting here with no job and I didn’t do anything wrong. Not all drivers who driver for Uber are illiterate. Some of us are educated and I would never do such a thing. I just wanted to tell my part of the story,” said Roy.
No police case was registered following this incident which occurred on Friday, February 15.