BPO rape, murder clouds Bangalore

Just adding to my Previuos Blog now it is turn for safely driving with others.

The rape and murder of a call centre employee, a 24-year-old woman, by a person pretending to be the late night driver of her company transport has sent a chill down the spine of the BPO industry in Bangalore.

About the Tragedy: On December 13, newly wed Pratibha, an employee of HP Globalsoft, located at the Electronics City, went missing. She was picked up at 1.50 am (for her 2.30 am shift) from her residence at Kumaraswamy Layout, nearly 25 km from her office, by a driver claiming to be a substitute.


On Friday morning(16-12-2005), after the police tracked down the driver—using Pratibha’s cell phone records—they found her body dumped in a grove on the outskirts of Bangalore.

Police investigations have revealed that the 28-year-old accused Shivakumar, one of 60 drivers from SRS Transport which services HP Globalsoft, called Pratibha on her mobile phone on the evening of December 13 to tell her that he would be coming to pick her up in place of her regular driver Jagadish.

An unsuspecting Pratibha agreed and was seen off by her mother-in-law boarding the vehicle driven by Shivakumar. Minutes later Pratibha’s regular vehicle arrived at her home and found that she had already been picked up. When the regular driver, Jagadish, called Pratibha on her cell phone to verify, she informed him that she had already been picked up and handed the cell phone to Shivakumar who told Jagadish that he had been asked to pick up Pratibha.

Jagadish informed the time office at HP that Pratibha had been picked up by vehicle number 405—the number provided by Shivakumar. According to statements given to the police by Shivakumar, since his nabbing on Thursday night, he took Pratibha to a desolate place on the Kanakapura Road, leading out of Bangalore, raped her at knife-point, and slit her throat.

Prathiba who got married in February this year had been employed with HP Globalsoft for the past six months.

From Shivakumar’s mobile phone records, the police have found that he had also called two other girls the same night with the same story. The girls, however, refused to board his vehicle after they reportedly checked with the company and found that no replacement was being sent.

Now everybody has started talking about the safety measures and driving standard. These may help however the people who are driving also have to have some sense. This is my point of view of DO's and Dont's.

1. Consider Cab drivers as a human being.(esp. for girls)
2. Dont do the makeups in CAB itself.
3. Maintain a gap with others. As per CAB Drivers, lot of couples utilising CABs for their privacy.
4. Boys has be the first person on Pickup and drop.
5. Parents will drop them during the pickups(atleast verify the cab)

"There are so many migrants in Bangalore who are dependent on BPOs for a living," - Karnataka Govt give a safety to those people.