Full text: 27-year-old executive raped, Uber says 'thoughts are with the victim'

A 27-year-old woman was allegedly raped by the driver of taxi service Uber that she had hired to return home from a dinner party in Gurgaon on Friday night. The driver has been detained by the police this morning. [caption id=“attachment_1837923” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters image[/caption] The incident took place at around 9:30 pm when the woman, who works for a finance company in Gurgaon, was headed back to her home in north Delhi’s Inderlok area. “The woman had gone to a restaurant for dinner with some friends after her shift ended at 7 pm. One of her friends dropped her till Vasant Vihar from where she hired a cab run by a private company to take her to Inderlok,” police said citing the complaint filed by the victim. On the way, the woman dozed off on the back seat of the car only to wake up and find that they had stopped at a secluded spot. She found that the car doors were locked and, when she tried to raise an alarm, the driver thrashed her and then committed rape, police said. The accused then dropped her off near her home in Inderlok after threatening to kill her if she spoke of the matter to anybody. Below is the statement issued by the taxi service: Our thoughts are with the victim of this terrible crime and we are working with the police as they investigate. We will assist them in any way we can. It is also our policy to immediately suspend a driver’s account following allegations of a serious incident, which we have done. Safety is Uber’s highest priority and in India, we work with licensed driver-partners to provide a safe transportation option, with layers of safeguards such as driver and vehicle information, and ETA-sharing to ensure there is accountability and traceability of all trips that occur on the Uber platform. - Evelyn Tay, Uber Spokeswoman