MUMBAI: An Uber driver in Mumbai took a passenger to the police station after overhearing a phone conversation on the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protest.
According to media reports, the incident took place late on Wednesday night when a 23-year-old poet-activist Bappadittya Sarkar from Jaipur took an Uber cab from Juhu to Kurla around 10.30 pm.
During the journey, Sarkar, a Mass Communication graduate from Fergusson College in Pune began a phone conversation in Hindi with his friend about “protest cultures”, the anti-CAA protest at Shaheen Bagh and about “Laal Salaam” slogan.
The driver, identified as Rohit Singh, was listening to his conversation stopped the cab and told Sarkar he wanted to withdraw money from ATM.
Minutes later, Singh returned with two policemen and allegedly asked the police to take him as he was talking about “burning the country”.
In the long interrogation, the police asked him about his ideology, books he reads, poems he writes, his father’s salary, about Mumbai Bagh, Shaheen Bagh protests.
The Mumbai Police after recording the statement of both the driver and the poet’s statements, allowed Sarkar to leave around 1.30 am with an advised not to carry the Dafli or wear a red scarf, “as the atmosphere is not good and anything can happen”, according to the statement tweeted by Secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association Kavita Krishnan.
She also tagged Mumbai Police and Uber.
“We have followed you. Please share the exact details of case in DM,” the police said in a reply to her tweet.
Twitter handle ‘Uber India Support’ said the incident was “concerning”. “We’d like to address this on priority. Kindly share the registered details from which the trip was requested,” it said.