Uber Suspends Driver Who Took Anti-CAA Protester to Cops

“I’m proud of what I did,” says Uber driver Rohit Singh who took anti-CAA activist to a police station in Mumbai.

Mumbai BJP President Mangal Prabhat Lodha felicitates the Uber driver (left)/Poet Bappadittya Sarkar (Right)

(Photo Courtesy: ANI/Altered by The Quint)

Rohit Singh, the Uber driver who took his passenger to the police because he was an anti-CAA protester, was suspended by the cab aggregator.

According to a report in The Indian Express, Uber reached out to the passenger, Bappadittya Sirkar in a statement saying, 'Your safety is something we take seriously and we would not want you to pay for the inconvenience caused'.

We want to inform you that we have temporarily restricted the driver’s access to the Uber app while the investigation is underway.

Uber, in a statement.

When contacted by The Indian Express, an Uber spokesperson said the 'investigation was ongoing.'

Soon after the incident went viral, Mumbai BJP President Mangal Prabhat Lodha felicitated the Uber driver for being an alert citizen. Speaking to ANI, the driver said that he was, 'proud of what he did'.

“He was talking about Shaheen Bagh, protests and all, which is absolutely normal for me. But what triggered me was when he said, ‘Look, the country will burn anyway’. That’s when I got worried about it and I started recording his voice. I was about to drop him to Kurla. Initially, I thought that I should take him to his destination, but then I thought, maybe I should take him towards the police station because he was talking about doing something big like Shaheen Bagh in Mumbai as well.”

Rohit Singh, Uber driver

He further added, “I have dropped over 3,000 people to their destination so far and this was the first time I took someone to the police station because I felt that he was going to harm our country.”

Rohit Singh also stated that he gave his statement to Uber and the cab aggregator suspended him temporarily, for about 48 to 72 hours, for the ongoing investigation. He claimed that he would be back online.

Here’s What Happened on 5 February

On the night of 5 February, a 23-year-old Jaipur-based poet, Bappadittya Sarkar, was taken to a police station in Mumbai by the Uber driver who heard Sarkar talking about anti-CAA protests on the phone.

When Sarkar asked the driver why had he brought him to the police station, the driver allegedly responded saying, “You will destroy the country and we will just watch on? I could have taken you somewhere else too, be glad that I brought you to the police station instead.”

Police then recorded the statement of Bappadittya Sarkar as well as the driver. They allegedly went through Sarkar’s WhatsApp account and contacts and questioned him about being a communist, among other things.

THe police, Sarkar alleges, later told him not to carry a dafli or wear a red scarf.

“They told me, “Abhi mahaul kharab hai, kuch bhi ho sakta hai. (The situation is bad right now, anything can happen),” recounted Sarkar.

The next day, Sarkar was so afraid to take a cab, so he decided to travel by train to Nagpada to join the Mumbai Bagh protest.