"Akdom chup! Toke kidnap kore rape kore debo" (Shut up, or I’ll rape you). Uber cab driver Santu Parmanik probably thought that one sentence would get him laid

It got him beaten up instead, because his 27 year old target was in no mood to be a victim.

newsx

The woman, a Jadavpur University student and a friend had booked an app-cab at JD block in Salt Lake at around 10pm on Monday. "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.

He took another off-the-route left lane at Bijan Bhavan and she protested:

"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," the woman said. While she protested the driver said the lane would save time. The driver kept arguing about the route, and then drove past her designated drop point. "This alarmed me and I asked him to stop. Suddenly , he flew into a rage," she recounted. The driver threatened to rape her if she uttered another word, she says.

She jumped out of the moving car

youngfeministfund | representational purpose only

Not many media outlets have reported what happened next - she attacked him, landing kicks on his shin and the back of his knees and fled, 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." The driver was arrested soon after she made her police complaint. He was also driving rashly, and the woman says he threatened to dump her body after raping her, something he'd done to many other women

Uber had an odd response when she informed them of the incident - they said the cab driver was "suspended".

When she asked why he was not fired, the company official said that his cab 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).

Uber has given us the following response w.r.t the issue:

"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."