by Bobins Abraham
He thought Pooja was rich and decide to rob her on the way to the airport.
If you are a frequent cab user, you will be familiar with this scene – where the driver cancels the trip citing some or the other reasons and then promise you to still give you a ride on the same rate which was shown on the app.
There are other instances where passengers skip the booking on the app and contact the driver directly for trips.
Both police and cab aggregators have warned users multiple times that do not take such rides as the safety of the passenger cannot be assured.
This is exactly the mistake that Pooja Singh Dey, a model-cum-event manager from Kolkata did in Bengaluru.
Pooja had come to Bengaluru on July 29 for an event management programme at a star hotel in Parappana Agrahara. She had taken an Ola Cab from the airport to the hotel and had instructed to pick her up on July 31 from the hotel and drop at the airport. But that turned out to be a big mistake.
On July 31, the local police received a call informing them about the body of an unidentified woman, which was lying in a field, near the KIAL back gate with stab injuries on the chest, abdomen, throat and cuts on the palms.
While the cops began a probe, they failed to ascertain the identity of the victim as she had no documents on her.
The only clues left behind were her dress, footwear and a wristwatch.
The first breakthrough came in the form of a unique number on the watch, which the cops then used to identify the buyer of it.
Now they had the name of the Pooja Singh Dey, nothing more.
Later teams were sent to other cities including Police Delhi and Kolkata to inquired about missing persons and found a match at New Town police station in Kolkata.
The first lead in the search for the murder suspect came in the form of a piece of information that she had taken an Ola Cab on July 29 from the airport. The cab driver was later identified as one HN Nagesh and was arrested by the police on Friday.
So what happened?
Pooja had booked the cab on 29th from the Ola app and had asked Nagesh to come back and pick her up from the hotel at 4 am on 31st.
Nagesh, who began driving for recently had some financial troubles and had missed a couple of EMIs of his car.
He thought Pooja was rich and decide to rob her on the way to the airport.
Pooja had fallen asleep on in the cab and Nagesh took full advantage of it to take the cab to a different, isolated route where he used a knife and jack rod he had stored in the car to stab her until she became unconscious.
When she regained consciousness and tried to escape, Nagesh used a brick to bludgeon her to death. Nagesh fled the scene with her handbag and mobile phone after dumping her body.
To his shock, all Nagesh found in her handbag was Rs 500 and some ATM cards.
Article first published in India Times.
