Delhi’s most tech-savvy cop Madhur Verma probing Uber

NEW DELHI: Life is tough for taxi-aggregation app Uber in India as it is not only facing a ban but also a criminal investigation in Delhi after the driver of a cab registered with the service raped a woman passenger. The man going after the San Francisco-based startup is no old-school policeman. He is probably the capital's most tech-savvy cop.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma is leading the probe against Uber. He is the only top Delhi cop active on Twitter and Facebook, posting regular probe updates on the internationally followed case as well as news stories appearing in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal on this case. On Sunday, he took on writer Chetan Bhagat's defence of Uber where Bhagat made a case of Uber being made a scapegoat by banning it. "Why @chetan_bhagat conveniently forgot that Uber promised: Background checks; driver profiles & full accountability?" Verma tweeted.


Speaking to ET, Verma, 34, insisted that he was not going after Uber and he just wanted the company to follow rules. “Let Uber follow transport rules and come back. We have no objection. If Uber followed rules and did driver checks as they promise on their website, this rape case may have been avoided,” he said. This is his first posting as DCP after joining IPS in 2005 and the Uber case is his most challenging assignment yet.

His peers say Verma's profile deflates the argument that a cop with little world-view is targeting Uber. In its latest statement on December 11, Uber said that it needs to bring in its global best practices to enhance its India safety efforts.

Verma admits Uber is popular among women. "Yes, Uber is popular. But it is running illegally. There are only two kinds of taxi services - one an All India Permit Taxi for plying from Delhi to other states, other is a Radio Taxi for local travel. Contrary to what Uber believes, there is no third kind. So how were they running," Verma said, questioning Uber's aggregator model. According to him, Uber made it worse by bypassing driver verification checks. "What Uber claims on its website, it does not ensure. Acustomer trusting Uber for safety ended up being raped. Hence the cheating case against Uber. It is still to provide us convincing answers.”

Eric Alexander, Uber's president of business in Asia, has already been quizzed by Verma. The DCP also reached out on Twitter to a woman who had complained to Uber of misbehaviour by the accused cabbie in November, and asked her to email her complaint to him for action.