"Strange People Live There": Ola Suspends Driver For Refusing Route

New Delhi: A day after a man complained that an Ola driver had refused to take him to his destination, Delhi's Jamia Nagar, Ola said it has "off-roaded" the driver. The firm's response came after the journalist wrote a long Facebook post to share his experience, in which he mentioned that the driver dropped him at a secluded spot, threatened him, and that he filed a complaint with the police later.

After celebrating Eid on Sunday, 30-year-old Asad Ashraf, a journalist, had boarded the cab to go home to South Delhi's Jamia Nagar. "Wahan ajeeb log rehte hain! (Weird people live there)," the cab driver responded, Mr Ashraf told NDTV.

Mr Ashraf said that when he confronted the driver, Ashok Kumar, he called Jamia Nagar a "filthy locality" and spoke rudely. "I realised the cab was headed in the wrong direction soon after I boarded it. I confronted the driver and he threatened me with dire consequences insisting I should get off the cab," he said, recounting the incident.

In the Facebook post that was shared over 200 times, Mr Ashraf said the driver dropped him at a secluded spot and sped off. He alleged the Ola driver refused route because Jamia Nagar is a Muslim-dominated locality. 


He added he "raised an emergency alarm on the app after which an executive from OLA got back to me and ensured immediate action." But no action was taken even after an hour. Mr Ashraf said he also filed a complaint with the Delhi Police.

The post evoked strong responses on Facebook and Twitter.

@Olacabs why are you not taking any action against this bigot driver patener? @DelhiPolice

— Jonny Bravo (@jonnybravo_04) June 18, 2018

 On Monday afternoon, Ola posted a tweet: "Ola, like India, believes in secularity & will never allow any sort of discrimination"

Specific to the shocking Incident that happened last night, we have off-roaded the driver. Ola, like India, believes in secularity & will never allow any sort of discrimination amongst its customers & driver partners. We stand by our customer & deeply apologise for the incident.

— Ola (@Olacabs) June 18, 2018

"Specific to the shocking Incident that happened last night, we have off-roaded the driver. Ola, like India, believes in secularity & will never allow any sort of discrimination amongst its customers & driver partners. We stand by our customer & deeply apologise for the incident." The cab aggregator had posted a similar tweet in April when a customer tweeted to say that he did not book a cab because the driver was a Muslim.

Cancelled @Olacabs Booking because Driver was Muslim. I don't want to give my money to Jihadi People. pic.twitter.com/1IIf4LlTZL

— Abhishek Mishra (@Abhishek_Mshra) April 20, 2018

Ola, like our country, is a secular platform, and we don't discriminate our driver partners or customers basis their caste, religion, gender or creed. We urge all our customers and driver partners to treat each other with respect at all times.

— Ola (@Olacabs) April 22, 2018

Ola's response then had drawn appreciation from across social media.