An Uber driver yesterday was convicted of raping a young female passenger in the capital last year, in a high profile case that sparked fresh safety fears in a city plagued by sexual violence.
Uber was banned from operating in Delhi in the aftermath of the Dec. 5 attack, which sparked accusations it had failed to conduct adequate background checks, although the ban has never been fully enforced.
The court found Shiv Kumar Yadav guilty of raping the 25-year-old woman as she returned home from dinner with friends.
“He has been convicted and found to be guilty for all charges against him, which include rape,” public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava said after the verdict was delivered.
He will be sentenced on Friday after being convicted on four charges — rape, abduction, intimidation and causing harm.
“[The] court has convicted him for all the sections for which he was charged,” defense lawyer Dharmender Kumar Mishra told reporters outside the court.
Shortly after the attack it emerged that Yadav had been accused of assaulting other women, although he had no previous convictions.
Yadav was tried by one of the special fast-track courts introduced in 2013 following the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in Delhi, a crime that shocked the nation and sparked angry protests about India’s treatment of women.
The Uber rape occurred days before the second anniversary of that now notorious attack, which earned Delhi the title of India’s “rape capital,” and returned the issue of violence against women to the spotlight.
The victim in the Dec. 5 attack, who cannot be named, said she had dozed off in a taxi while returning home from dinner with friends. She told police she woke to find the taxi parked in a secluded place where the driver assaulted and raped her, before dumping her near her home in north Delhi.
Uber, which resumed operations in the capital earlier this year despite the ban, said it had learned lessons from the case and had made improvements to its checks and customer support.
It set up its India operation in September 2013, and now works in about a dozen Indian cities. The company and its Indian rival, Ola, applied for formal licenses to operate as radio taxi companies after they were banned from operating in December last year.
Dehli officials rejected Uber’s application saying it had failed to comply with requirements for a license, including a GPS system and police-verified badges for its drivers. However, the central government this month published new guidelines for Web-based ride-hailing firms.
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