President and 7 directors of Al Falah Minorities Co-op Society killed in accident

Bengaluru, Jan 6: Cab aggregators are once again in news for the wrong reasons after an Ola cab driver misbehaved with a 34-year-old woman passenger and even threatened to kill her when she raised an alarm.

But what followed was worse. The woman, a software engineer, immediately called the Ola emergency number following which they asked her to check if the driver was drunk. She later pressed the emergency button on the Ola app but received a message asking her to dial 100. After the aggregator failed to help her, she said she was lucky to be saved by the public.

Reacting to the incident, an Ola spokesperson said, “We regret the unfortunate incident and have immediately terminated the driver-partner from the platform upon receiving the complaint.”

Shruthi G (name changed), an employee at a software company at Bagmane Tech Park in Mahadevapura, booked an Ola cab after her work in the evening of January 3. She booked pick-up stops at two locations as she had to pick her four-year-old daughter from the day-care centre, which is 2 km away from her house.

However, around 6.22 pm, when the cab reached Malleshpalya near Kids Castle, the driver did not stop the vehicle. He asked her to get down at the last drop location. She told him to stop and tried to open the doors but he locked the doors, insisting that she sit in the car. When she resisted, he held her hands and abused her; he even threatened to kill her if she raised an alarm.

The victim said she pressed the emergency button on the app twice but only got a message advising her to call the police.

When she called the Ola emergency number, the person at the other end asked about her condition and to check whether the driver was drunk. They called back after one-and-a-half hours when she was filing a complaint at the police station.

“Ola did not make any efforts to reach out to the police or do anything to track my location and help me in that situation,” she said.

The victim called 100 and the staffer at the control room asked her which area she was in. Since she was familiar with the area, Shruthi was able to give her location.

“First they told me that the area comes under Baiyappanahalli. Later, they said it comes under HAL. Finally, they figured out the location. It took 20 minutes for the police to reach the spot,” she said.

What saved Shruti was her sheer instinct and luck. Alone in the cab, she started raising an alarm. Luckily, commuters in the other vehicles next to the cab noticed her screaming for help and stopped the driver.

“If this is the kind of security Ola provides its customer, it is very questionable,” she said. “If we have to really call the police during an emergency then why they put out the number and emergency button, it’s a waste of time during that crucial situation. If they directly told us to dial 100 during an emergency, it will save time. Lakhs of commuters take Ola cabs thinking it is safe but they have no mechanism to check their drivers and track their customers in danger.”

Baiyappanahalli police said the accused Bhimashankar Malged was arrested and remanded in judicial custody following the complaint.

New Delhi, Feb 7: The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Central government on a plea challenging the Constitutional validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and effective implementation of the Assam Accord.

A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) SA Bobde also sought Centre's response on the plea filed by Assam Social Justice Forum.

The petition sought appropriate directions for taking effective steps for the implementation of Assam Accord, 1985 in letter and spirit and for conservation and preservation of the of a distinct culture, heritage and traditions of the indigenous people of Assam.

The Assam Accord, 1985, had fixed March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for deportation of all illegal immigrants irrespective of their religion.

The Bench also sought Centre's response on another fresh batch of pleas challenging CAA and tagged them along with other petitions pending in the matter.

One of the petitions, filed by the Association of Advocates from Maharashtra among others, sought to declare the Citizenship Amendment Act as discriminatory, arbitrary, and illegal and consequently set aside the impugned act as ultra-vires the Constitution of India.

On the other hand, over a hundred petitions have been filed in the apex court, for and against the amended citizenship law, which is facing opposition and protests across the country.

CAA grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who fled religious persecution in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan and took refuge in India on or before December 31, 2014.

Mangaluru, Feb 27: An utterly unprofessional thief, who fell asleep after breaking into a house, was caught by the house owner and handed over to the police in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada.

The hilarious incident took place on Wednesday in the one-storey, tiled-roof house owned by Sudarshan at Ullas Junction under the limits of Uppinangady police station.

The thief, who gained entry into the house by removing the roof-tiles, has been identified as Anil Sahani, a native of Bihar’s Majipur district. He was snoring on the sofa with a set of keys clutched in his hand when the house owner woke up in the morning.

The house owner, who was sure that the thief was drunk, woke him up by hitting him with a stick and then handed him over to the police.

According to police, the thief was tired after removing the tiles on Tuesday night and hence he decided to take a nap soon after entering the house.

He grabbed a bunch of keys kept near the TV stand and then lied down on the sofa. He woke up only when the house owner hit him with a stick the next morning.