Man books ride from student’s phone, drives away with cab

MYSURU: An unidentified person conned an engineering student and a driver before driving away with the car he had hired from a taxi service in Mysuru last week. The accused, said to be in his mid-30s, and the car are untraced.
Around 7am on May 23, the accused approached an engineering student, who was standing near Ananda Bhavan, off Mysuru railway station, after arriving from Bengaluru. Seemingly in a hurry, the man told the student that he wanted to go to an area near Infosys campus. Since he got drenched in rain and his mobile phone was not working, he pleaded with the student to book a cab for him to Infosys from an app-based aggregator, Jugnoo.
The student found nothing amiss in his request and booked a cab that arrived in five minutes. The unidentified person thanked the student before boarding the white Maruti Ritz. In minutes, the cab, driven by Raghuswamy, reached Infosys. The passenger requested the driver to continue the ride till Megalapura, on the city outskirts, where his friend was waiting for him.
On a lonely stretch blocked with stones for tar-laying work, the driver got down to clear the path. He got off the car and the accused immediately hopped on to the driver’s seat and vroomed away.
Raghuswamy knocked on the doors of nearby houses and sought their help to reach Yelwala police station. Police, in turn, relayed the message to all its stations and checkposts and screen all cabs leaving the district border. Police secured the mobile number of the student, from whose phone the ride was booked, and found him in the clear after primary probe.