Authorities ban online taxi service as police consider legal action against firm for failing to run background checks

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

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.

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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.”