A Bengaluru woman has accused an auto driver of attempting to steal from her handbag during a ride.
The incident reportedly occurred during a commute from Marathahalli to JP Nagar 7th Phase around 8.24 pm on June 11.
The woman, Janhavi, shared a video of the confrontation on Instagram, which has since gone viral. In her post, she narrated the incident to raise awareness and urged the app-based aggregator to take action. What began as a routine commute, she said, quickly turned into a “disturbing experience and nightmare.”
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Watch the video here:
According to her account, the driver behaved suspiciously throughout the ride. “He was staring at me repeatedly through the rearview mirror in an uncomfortable, almost creepy way,” Janhavi wrote. Sensing something was off, she alerted a friend via Snapchat, also noting that her phone battery was low.
To avoid being left without communication, she requested to pay the fare early. The driver allowed her to do so and even offered to charge her phone, which she handed over, a decision she later regretted.
The incident escalated around 9.40 pm when, just a kilometre away from her destination, Janhavi briefly stepped into a shop to buy coffee powder after a call from her mother. Upon exiting the store, she claims she caught the driver red-handed, trying to unzip her handbag, which had been left inside the auto.
“I saw him struggling to open the front zip of my bag. He didn’t realize I was standing right behind him, watching everything,” she wrote.
When confronted, the driver allegedly claimed he was trying to move the bag for safety and later attempted to blame a nearby passerby for the attempted theft. Janhavi said she clarified the situation publicly and even involved the bystander to verify what had actually happened.
She recorded the confrontation on video, took note of the auto’s registration number, and has filed a complaint with the app.
“This is NOT just about money. This is about trust, safety, and dignity. I shudder to think what could have happened if I hadn’t returned in time,” she added in her post, tagging Rapido and urging the platform to take strict action against the driver and tighten background checks.
HT.com has reached out to Rapido for a statement and is currently awaiting a response.
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