An Uber cab driver left his passenger with a bloodied nose last week after he refused to pay a higher fare, The Hindu reported on Monday. A case has been filed against the driver, but he is absconding.

Aneek Roy, 23, had booked a cab from his Whitefield residence to the airport. While he had booked an Uber Pool ride, Roy said the driver asked him to pay the higher fare applicable for Uber Go rides. This led to an argument, following which the cab driver punched Roy in the nose, leaving him bloodied.

“In his statement, he said when he started loading his luggage in the taxi, the driver, identified as Harish KS, demanded that he pay the Uber Go fare in advance,” a senior police officer said. Roy objected to this, pointing out that he had booked a share ride. However, the driver refused to drop him and insisted that he cancel the ride. When Roy refused, Harish began to throw his things out of the car.

“In a fit of rage, Harish punched Roy’s nose so hard that he started bleeding profusely,” the police officer said. Roy said that people who gathered at the spot to witness the incident did not help him. Harish began to punch and kick Roy. Finally, a shopkeeper intervened and convinced Harish to leave.

Later, Roy was not allowed to fly as he had a bloodied nose. He got himself admitted to Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru where he was diagnosed with nasal bone dislocation. Following a procedure to correct the problem, Roy filed a complaint with the police and took another flight to Kolkata.

A spokesperson for Uber told The Hindu that the driver has been sacked. “We do not condone violence of any kind and our community guidelines clearly reject this kind of behaviour,” he said. “The safety of our riders is paramount and upon learning of this incident, we removed the driver-partner’s access to the app.”

This is the second incident of a cab aggregator’s driver misbehaving with a customer in Bengaluru over the past week. Last week, an Ola Cab driver asked a 32-year-old woman to alight from the vehicle as he did not want to take the tolled Ballari Road to the airport.

The woman had pressed the emergency button as she realised that the Ola driver was taking the Begur Road, which has no street lights. The driver asked her to get down on the BK Halli-Bagalur road at 3.30 am. Ola allegedly did not respond to the woman’s calls for help for two hours.

The police arrested the driver on Thursday after the woman filed a complaint with the airport police.

The Bengaluru Police subsequently issued an advisory to cab aggregators saying that they must not take “unsafe” routes to the city’s international airport between 7 pm and 7 am.

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