'Memories haunt me': India's Uber rape victim

The 25-year-old wrote in a newspaper about the night of December 5 when she dozed off in a taxi while returning home

NEW DELHI: An Indian woman who was allegedly raped by an Uber taxi driver said on Thursday that she has stopped going out alone and has trouble falling asleep after the attack.

The 25-year-old wrote in a newspaper article about the night of December 5 when she dozed off in a taxi while returning home from dinner with friends.

She told police she woke to find the taxi parked in a secluded place where the driver assaulted and raped her, before dumping her near her home in north Delhi.

"Today, I find it difficult to sleep. Memories of that night keep coming back in flashes to haunt me," she said in the Indian Express newspaper column published Thursday.
"I feel scared to go out alone."

The Uber case brought the spotlight back on women's safety in India, just days before the second anniversary of a fatal gang-rape of a Delhi student that unleashed global outrage.

In the 2012 attack six men raped the 23-year-old, including with an iron rod, on a moving bus in New Delhi. The brutality of the assault sparked street protests and led to tougher anti-rape laws.
But the Uber rape victim says the laws have failed to deter rapists like her alleged attacker, taxi driver Shiv Kumar Yadav, who she said also threatened to assault her with an iron rod.

"Instead of being deterred, this man actually used the December 16 gang-rape to scare and assault a woman," she said.

She criticised Uber for failing to perform background checks of its drivers like Yadav, 32, who was driving the taxi while on bail for a slew of previous charges including rape and molestation.
Uber has been banned from operating in Delhi.

The woman ends her article urging an end to public apathy, which she says "must be done away with".