[Authorities ban online
taxi service as police consider legal action against firm for failing to run
background checks]
By Jason Burke
 |
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Indian
police escort Uber taxi driver and accused rapist Shiv Kumar Yadav following
his court
appearance in New Delhi. Photograph: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images
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Authorities in
Delhi have banned US-based taxi firm Uber from
operating in the Indian capital after one of its drivers was accused of raping
a passenger.
There was outrage
locally after it was alleged that the driver, who appeared in court briefly to
be remanded in custody on Monday, was arrested for a sexual assault three
years ago.
Indian police said
they were considering legal action against the online taxi service for failing
to run effective background checks. A manager of the firm has been questioned.
Officials in Delhi accused the firm of misleading clients and
not being properly licensed for the services it was offering.
“Keeping in view
the violation [and the] horrific crime [allegedly] committed by the driver, the
transport department has banned all activities related to providing any
transport service by Uber with immediate effect,” a statement from local
transport authorities said.
The company, recently valued at $40bn (£26bn) ,
has said there were no defined rules in India on background checks for
commercial transport licences and it was working with the government to address
the issue.
“What happened
over the weekend in New Delhi is horrific,” Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief
executive officer and founder, said on Sunday. “We will do everything, I
repeat, everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice.”
Kalanick pledged
the firm would “work with the government to establish clear background checks
currently absent in their commercial transportation licensing programmes”.
The ban is
believed to be temporary, and its exact implications are unclear.
The incident has
sparked anger and concern in India.
Rajnath Singh, the
home minister, briefed the Indian parliament’s lower house on the case. He
called the incident “unfortunate and shameful” saying “stern steps need to be
taken”.
A series of widely-reported
cases have drawn attention to the growing problem of sexual violence towards
women in the world’s second-most populous country.
Almost exactly two
years ago a 23-year-old physiotherapist died of injuries sustained when raped
by six men on a bus in Delhi.
That incident
prompted widespread protests demanding tougher laws, better policing and a
shift in cultural attitudes.
Despite some
reforms, reported crimes against women such as rape, dowry deaths, abduction
and molestation increased by 26.7% in 2013 compared with the previous year,
according to government statistics. The number of rapes in the country rose by
more than a third.
Police have said
this was the result of more women coming forward, but some campaigners claim
that social stigma and threats result in only a tiny fraction of rapes being
reported.
A young woman was
set on fire after filing a rape complaint against three men in Ludhiana, a city
in the north-west of India, last week.
Many women
complain of systematic harassment, particularly on public transport.
India is the
fourth most dangerous place for a woman to take public transport, according to
a poll published in October by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. It was ranked
second worst on safety at night and for verbal harassment.
A row over awards
last week in Haryana, a state near Delhi, to two women in Haryana, who say they fought back after sustained
harassment from three men on a bus has highlighted the bitter
debate over the issue.
The arrested
driver, Shiv Kumar Yadav, is thought to have been arrested for raping another
female passenger three years ago and held for seven months in a high-security
prison. He was later acquitted for lack of evidence, police said, after “a
compromise was reached between him and the victim”, the Times of India
newspaper reported.
Such deals are not
rare in the emerging south Asian economic power. Critics say offenders buy off
or intimidate their accusers.
Police said Yadav,
32, who was arrested at his home in Mathura, dropped his victim at her home
after attacking her and warned her not to inform the authorities. However, she
managed to note the driver’s number and take a photograph of his car.
Police accuse Uber
of failing to check whether the driver had a clean police record or had a
satellite location device in his car.
“Every violation
by Uber will be evaluated and we will go for legal recourse,” said Madhur
Verma, the Delhi police deputy commissioner.
The criticism of
Uber comes at a time when the company has faced critical news coverage over its
driver screening in the US and has apologised for comments by an executive who
suggested “digging up dirt” on journalists investigating the firm.
That has not
stopped the San Francisco-based firm from raising investment, reflecting the
perceived potential of its expansion into high-growth markets such as India.
The optimism may not take into account the complexities of such environments.
Conservatives
blame the problems of sexual violence on western values, immodest dress or even
on the over-consumption of junk food. Others say the violence is caused by
young men from traditional rural backgrounds who see the increasingly
independent behaviour of young women as a threat.
Monica Kumar, a
clinical psychologist, who heads the Delhi-based Manas Foundation, told Reuters
news agency many taxi drivers are often migrants from less-developed areas
where patriarchal attitudes remain prevalent and were not accustomed to seeing
women out alone late at night or dressed differently.
“No one talks to
them, no one engages with them,” said Kumar, which runs gender-sensitisation
classes for rickshaw drivers.
“The conversations
about the changing scenario in cities like Delhi where women are becoming more
empowered are just not happening.”
