Mumbai: Uber Driver Takes Customer to Police Station for Talking About Anti-CAA Protests

Poet and activist Bappadittya Sarkar was reportedly questioned for about two hours before being let off.

New Delhi: An Uber driver in Mumbai decide to involve the police on Wednesday night when he heard his customer talking about anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests on the phone. The driver, identified as Rohit Singh, reportedly took the customer – poet and activist Bappadittya Sarkar – to the police station.

Twenty-three-year-old Sarkar was questioned by the police for two hours before being let off. According to the Indian Express, the police then let both the poet and the driver go as there was “no cognisable offence”. An Uber spokesperson has said that the company is “reviewing the matter” after receiving complaints.

Sarkar, from Jaipur, is in Mumbai for the Kala Ghoda Festival. He told Indian Express that he was booked an Uber from Juhu Silver Beach to Kurla at 11 pm on Wednesday. Once in the cab, he called a friend in Jaipur.

“We were talking about protest cultures in different cities, what happened at Shaheen Bagh yesterday, people’s discomfort with Laal Salaam and how we could make Jaipur’s protests more effective,” he said. About 20 minutes into the journey, Singh stopped the car near Santacruz police station and asked if he could go use an ATM. Minutes later, though, he returned with two police constables.

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Singh had reportedly recorded Sarkar’s side of the phone conversation while in the car. “Yeh desh jalane ki baat kar raha hai, bol raha hai main communist hoon, hum desh ko Shaheen Bagh banadenge, mere paas poori recording hai (He was talking about burning the country, saying he is a Communist, he will make the entire country a Shaheen Bagh, I have the entire recording),” Sarkar quoted Singh as telling the police.

All India Progressive Women’s Association secretary Kavita Krishnan tweeted about the incident.

The driver reportedly asked the police to keep Sarkar in their custody, and also told the poet he should be thankful that they had come to the police station and not gone elsewhere.

Around 1 am, activist S. Gohil reached the police station after which Sarkar was allowed to go, said the statement tweeted by Krishnan.

The police advised Sarkar not to carry a dafli or wear a red scarf, “as the atmosphere is not good and anything can happen”

Krishnan further said in a tweet that this incident was a “glimpse of scary India under NPR NRC CAA, where every person will be incentivised to suspect and turn in others and police can harass everyone”.

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. Uber India’s Twitter handle too said the incident was “concerning”. ”

(With PTI inputs)