"Rape korey debo(Will rape you), " the driver threatened the college girl as the taxi raced down a desolate Salt Lake Road.
Little did he know the 27-year-old woman in the back seat knew self-defence and would fight back.
"I won’t be a victim and be found dead in the bushes by the roadside, " she thought, The Telegraph reported.
At around 10pm on Monday, the Jadavpur University student and her friend had booked a cab from JD block in Salt Lake. "It was okay till my friend got down near Aranya Bhavan. Suddenly, the driver started speeding up and took a left where he didn’t need to, " she told the Times of India.
When he took another off-the-route left lane at Bijan Bhavan, she protested as "the lanes were deserted so I insisted on taking the main road. He agreed and continued to drive till FD block, where he again tried to enter a lane on the left, " she told TOI. The driver said the lane would save time and kept arguing about the route. He then drove past her designated drop point which alarmed her and she asked him to stop. "Suddenly, he flew into a rage" and threatened to rape her if she uttered another word, she recounted.
She hit him hard, jumped out of the car and struck him again when he lunged at her a second time, the Telegraph reported.
"I had taken self-defence lessons in school around 15 years ago and all that training suddenly came in handy. I remembered that I had to hit him hard on his shin bone to stop him and kick the back of his knees to make him fall, " she told the newspaper. "I mustered all my strength and targeted his shin bone and the back of his knees." She filed a police complaint against the driver who was then arrested.
However, when she informed Uber about the incident, they had came up with an odd response - they said the cab driver was "suspended".
On asking why he was not fired, the company official said that his cab did not show up on her app. "I was flabbergasted, " she said. The woman’s lawyer Saumyajit Raha said that Parmanik has been charged under IPC 341(wrongful restraint), 354(assault or criminal force on a woman to outrage her modesty), 323(voluntarily causing hurt) and 506(criminal intimidation).
When Indiatimes contacted Uber regarding the issue, following response was received:
"We have shared the driver and trip details with the police and will continue to support investigations as required. The driver has been blocked from using our platform. The background check conducted on the driver indicates no prior criminal record."