Protests against the rape of a woman passenger allegedly by a Uber taxi driver in New Delhi (Agence France-Presse photo)
Delhi Police today questioned Uber's Asia Pacific head, Eric Alexander, as part of an ongoing interrogation of officials of the US-based internet taxi service after one of its drivers was arrested for allegedly raping a woman passenger in New Delhi last week.
Here are the latest developments:
Mr Alexander, who appeared before the Delhi Commission of Women yesterday alongwith senior Uber executives, has been asked by the police to produce employee verification details, the company's database on drivers and other documents.
Uber, which was banned from operating in and around the capital by the Delhi government, has been charged with cheating and violating the law by running its business despite the fact that it had not registered as a taxi service.
Hyderabad today joined Delhi in banning the app-driven cab service with the city's road transport authority saying Uber had no licence to operate and the public had been directed not to use the service.
This comes a day after Home Minister Rajnath Singh advised all states to stop the operation of internet-based taxi services and ensure that only registered services were allowed.
Uber has been accused by the Delhi Police of hiring the driver accused of rape, Shiv Kumar Yadav, without proper background checks and therefore missing his criminal record, which includes two past rape cases, a case of assault on a woman and one for carrying arms.
In 2011, Yadav spent seven months in jail for allegedly raping a woman who worked at a pub in Gurgaon but he was later acquitted, the police said. He was accused in another rape case last year.
A week before a 27-year-old executive was raped allegedly by Yadav, the popular app-based taxi service had received a complaint about him from another woman, Nidhi Shah. She told NDTV she had complained to Uber that Yadav kept staring at her during a taxi ride on November 26 and told her that his GPS was not working.
Along with Uber, nearly 20 other cab services are likely to be blacklisted by the Delhi government, leaving thousands of drivers unemployed, and cutting off women from a service that was seen as safe.
The government has not explained why it did not intervene earlier - services like Uber and Ola, another web-based taxi service, have been advertising their services for months.
Yadav had a permit to operate a taxi issued by the Transport Department, but the police say that the documents like a character certificate used to obtain that permit were forged.
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