Uber in Trouble in Assam

ITANAGAR: A Delhi-based lawyer is taking on taxi booking giant, Uber, after being subjected to rude behaviour by one of its employees last week.

On the afternoon of August 7, 25-year-old lawyer and musician Kaushik Baruah from Assam had booked a taxi through the company’s mobile app and was to be picked from a location in Gurugram. As he and his sixty-year-old mother waited for the taxi to arrive, it began raining.

Baruah said that the driver then called him and asked him to come to the main road. When he tried explaining that the two of them would get drenched walking from the shed under which they were protecting themselves from the rain to the main road, the driver refused to move the taxi and insisted that they come to him instead.

That was just to be the start of a disturbing ride.

Sharing his experience on Facebook, Baruah said that he was ‘mocked’ for his ethnicity.

“He mocked at us for being Bengali (I’m Assamese by the way) because I used the word ‘arey’,” he wrote.

Baruah said that the driver tried intimidating them by telling them of his “adventures in the army and how we should just shut up and not complain about being completely drenched”.

He also said that driver “forcefully pushed us out”.

His post on Facebook had gained traction and was picked up by some news media outlets.

A representative from Uber did respond to his complaint, writing that the matter has been escalated but that the specifics of action taken against the driver cannot be disclosed “due to privacy policies and restrictions”.

Baruah said that the incident left his mother traumatized.

“I'm just appalled at how Uber isn't even empathizing,” he told The Citizen.

Baruah also informed that he is suing the cab aggregator.

We have reached out to Uber for a comment.