Kolkata Uber driver threatens to rape passenger

In yet another incident involving popular car-sharing service, Uber, a driver in Kolkata told his passenger that he planned to rape her while steering the taxi towards an isolated road in the city. However, using what she had learnt during self-defense lessons, the girl managed to escape.

When the driver said to her, "rape korey debo," (I will rape you) the  27-year-old thought to herself, "I won't be a victim and be found dead in the bushes by the roadside," she told The Telegraph.



The driver even threatened to dump her body in a ditch if she screamed, informing her that he had done this to several women before.

The Jadavpur University student had taken self-defense lessons at the age of 15 in school. And so, after the driver threatened her, she jumped out of the moving car then hit him on his shin bone and the back of his knees, and ran.



"I had taken self-defense 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 tried stopping her from getting into the car and reversing, but the victim then jumped out and he sped away.

The cab driver was identified as a 28-year-old man called Santu Pramanik. He was arrested on Tuesday, a few hours after the woman filed a police complaint, The Telegraph reported.



According to the victim, the driver started behaving badly after they dropped her friend off and she was alone in the cab. He drove rashly, swerving left and right, going in the wrong direction, and eventually telling her that he would drop her off wherever he pleased.

The victim reported the driver to Uber, but an official of the app-based cab service providers told her that the driver was suspended. When she asked Uber why he had not been fired, the company official said that his cab did not show up on her app.

"I was flabbergasted," she said.

Uber told The Telegraph that the company had shared the driver details with the police, and he had been barred from using its platform.

This article originally appeared on Huffington Post