Hyderabad: A cab driver, who was on his first day on the job, alleged on Sunday that a group of six men chased his car for about three kilometres, damaged the vehicle at Narsingi. The driver, Syed Lateefuddin, who works for Uber, alleged that the men fled with cash and documents. He claimed that the men asked him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ when the sequence of incidents began.
This is the second incident involving a cab driver in a month. On August 8, a gang beat up an Ola driver and the owner at Rajendranagar.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Lateefuddin said that he accepted a ride at Alkapuri and was heading there using a map. When he slowed down on a road near Tolichowki, the gang stopped beside his car on two bikes at around 3.45 am. “There were two men on a bike and four on a scooter. They first hit my car with their hands. I rolled down the window to ask them what the issue was. Upon noticing my accent, the men, who were drunk, asked me to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and started to pull my door open.”
“I pulled the door back and drove out of the place. They followed me for about three kilometres until I reached an isolated place near Alkapuri and stopped at a dead end. I immediately left the car with my phone and started shouting for help and hid in the nearby bushes when I noticed them approaching. They picked up huge rocks lying around and broke all the side windows and left with cash and my car’s documents upon seeing the locals approaching,” Lateefuddin claimed.
The police was duly informed. Narsingi station house officer V. Shiva Kumar said, “We have launched teams to probe the case and check all the CCTV cameras along the route. We will take the men responsible into custody by Monday morning,” he said.
Asked about the driver’s allegation that the gang asked him to chant slogans, a senior police official said that it can only be established after investigation. “We suspect that an incident of road rage might have led to them asking the driver to chant. It will be clarified once we identify and arrest the men,” he said.
Dial 100 took 1 hour to reach: Driver
Hyderabad: Uber cab driver Syed Lateefuddin claimed that the police took an hour to reach him after he was tailed and attacked by a gang. However, a police officer said that the area had poor network coverage and the police took time to ascertain the location but reached the place in 12 minutes .
Lateefuddin said the car was in his brother’s name. “My wallet had about Rs 6,000, including my earnings from my first day. I was hiding in the bushes when I first called 100 for help. They kept routing me to Narsingi police station as I was in their jurisdiction and kept repeating, ‘the teams are on their way’. I thought I might get killed,” Lateefuddin said. “I might have called them about 50 times.”
After the ordeal, Lateefuddin said, he asked Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) spokesperson Amjed Ullah Khan for help. On Sunday, the MBT leader accompanied Lateefuddin to the Narsingi police station and called senior officials who assured him that a probe would be launched to check the delay in the police arrival. The MBT leader said the police took up investigation only after he spoke with Cyberabad police commissioner Stephen Raveendra. “Teams from the ACP office and Special Operations Teams (SOT) were roped in to check cameras and identify the men,” he said.
Lateefuddin spent his Sunday travelling in police vans to check CCTV camera footage. “The police have gathered CCTV footage from Tolichowki to Narsingi and have been taking me around to identify the men,” he said.
