Cab drivers are ones indulging in crime but now criminals are targetting cab drivers by posing as passengers. These criminals are not only robbing them but are also killing these drivers for money.
The Auraiya police has cracked down the case of an Ola driver being kidnapped and strangulated by a gang of five members on August 31.
According to police, the modus operandi of highway criminals is simple. They use fake SIM cards for creating their profiles and then book outstation cabs through app-based cab services. When the ride is on, they use arms to hold the cab drivers hostage and then they rob them and in some cases, if the drivers resist, they even kill them.
What led to the investigations and cracking of the case was the murder of an Ola driver on August 31. A gang had booked an Ola cab for Agra from Haryana's Ballabhgarh for Rs 2,300. When the cab reached an isolated area around the Sirsagaj-Mainpuri highway, the gang strangulated the driver with a cloth and threw him out of the cab in the bushes. The driver has been identified as 35-year-old Hoshiar Singh, a resident of Palval in Haryana.
On September 3 around 11.30 pm, a patrolling team of Auriaya police came across a White Wagon-R car without a number plate. On seeing five suspicious men sitting inside the car, the police tried to question them which led to a tussle between the police and the gang members. The police managed to arrest all five of them. Police said that the gang members were discussing on how to sell the Wagon-R.
"The police recovered a phone from the cab and called on a number. The call was attended by a relative of the cab driver who informed the police that he had been missing for the past few days and his mobile phone had also been switched off," IPS Triveni Singh said.
Fortunately, the cab driver had shared a picture of the passengers with his family members. Once the picture matched with the gang members, police immediately arrested them. The accused have been identified as Anil Nagar, Himanshu Chamar, Rahul Chamar, Praveen and Nitin.
The Auraiya police also recovered a large number of arms from the gang including a 315 bore rifle, cartridges, a 12 bore gun with cartridges and a local-made pistol.They have been arrested under the arms act and an FIR has been registered in Ballabgarh, Faridabad under Section 302 of the IPC -kidnapping with murder.
When the police shared the details of the cab driver with Ola cabs, the app-based cab service confirmed the incident. The police later recovered the body of the driver near the highway.
App-based cab aggregators claim that there have been ten cases of murders of their drivers and over 90 cases of kidnapping. The Uttar Pradesh Police has issued an advisory to cab companies to authenticate the details of customers or enable a service where drivers can also take pictures of customers or share their customers' information.
IPS Singh of the Uttar Pradesh Police, who led the operation, told IBT that his team is working on the entire nexus.
