Ola driver holds rider hostage for 13 days, arrested after shootout

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A doctor in Delhi was rescued last night after being held for ransom by an Ola driver for 13 days, police have informed local media.

The doctor, Sreekanth Goud from the southern state of Telangana, booked a ride to go home around midnight after a party in East Delhi on July 6. Instead of taking him home to South Delhi, the driver veered off to Dadri in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, threatening to kill the doctor if he tried to raise an alarm. In Dadri, a gang of kidnappers joined the driver in the car.

The kidnappers first made a ransom call to Ola, demanding INR 50 million (US$776,000), using the doctor’s phone. They followed this up with a call to the hospital, and also sent video clips of the doctor.

The kidnappers continued to use the doctor’s phone in the following days, perhaps in the notion they would not be traced if they didn’t use their own phones. Police came close to nabbing them in the Uttar Pradesh town of Meerut, then tracked them down again in the busy pilgrim town of Haridwar where the Ganges flows down from the Himalayas. But the kidnappers escaped.

Finally, a tip-off took the police back to a building under construction in Meerut. The kidnappers opened fire when the police arrived. One of the kidnappers took a bullet in the thigh during the shootout. Four of them, including the driver, were arrested and the doctor was rescued unharmed. The police believe the mastermind behind the crime is still at large, and are interrogating the arrested abductors to find others involved.

In December 2014, an Uber driver was arrested in Delhi for sexually assaulting a young woman passenger. This was the first such incident involving an app-based ride-hailing service in India, and it shattered a sense of security that most passengers took for granted until then. The driver was found to be a repeat offender who, in 2011, had spent seven months in Delhi’s Tihar jail for rape but was acquitted later.

The latest incident will again raise questions on the checks in place for onboarding of drivers and emergency systems on ride-hailing apps. Police said the driver involved in the kidnapping used a fake license and forged documents to enroll with Ola.

See: I fell for Uber’s safe image because I didn’t – and still don’t – have better options

During the ransom call, the kidnapper is reported to have told a nurse at the hospital to put pressure on Ola to pay the ransom, claiming they just wanted to teach the company a lesson. This adds a twist to the kidnapping case.

Ola and Uber drivers have been protesting a sharp cutback in incentives, and went on strike earlier this year in Delhi. Many had taken loans to buy cars when incentives were high and felt hard done by. The strikes and cutback of incentives have slowed down growth for both ride-hailing apps.

See: Ola, Uber growth in India screeches to a halt in 2017

“As the investigation still continues and there is a moratorium in place, we are not in a position to share details of the incident,” an Ola spokesperson said in response to questions from Tech in Asia.

“We are extremely relieved on the safe return of Dr. Sreekanth Goud from the hands of the kidnapper… We continue to cooperate with the police in their investigations, to ensure that the culprits are brought to justice,” the Ola spokesperson said.