Delhi cab driver accused of rape arrested

Students protestthe rising incidents of rape in New Delhi on Sunday. -AP

A 32-year-old Uber cab driver accused of raping a 25-year-old working woman in Delhi on Friday night was arrested on Sunday in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura town, police said.

Shiv Kumar Yadav was taken into custody from a hideout in Mathura, about 135km south of the capital, Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said in Delhi.

Yadav was caught in a joint operation by Delhi and Uttar Pradesh Police force.

A police official said in Mathura that Yadav was being interrogated at the Highway Police station after he was nabbed from Chandrapuri colony. Police also seized a white car.

"He is being brought to Delhi," Bhagat said.

The woman, who works at a finance company, was returning from a dinner engagement on Friday night and used the mobile app Uber to hire a cab to drive her home, said another New Delhi police officer, Alma Ming.

The woman fell asleep during the ride. When she woke up, she found the car parked in a secluded place, and the driver then threatened her and raped her.

Police have filed a case against Yadav accusing him of raping the woman.

Uber said in a statement on Saturday that it had suspended the driver’s account and was cooperating with authorities. “We are working with the police as they investigate, and will assist them in any way we can to determine what happened,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, dozens of students scuffled with officers on Sunday as they tried to enter police headquarters in New Delhi to protest the rising incidents of rape in the capital.

“I am here to protest the irregularities and failure of the state machinery, which refuses to acknowledge that rapes happen due to their failure,” said Urvashi Joshi, one of the demonstrators.

The protesters, from the All India Students Association, dispersed after an hour-long demonstration.

Indian officials, who for decades did little about sexual violence, have faced growing public anger since the December 2012 fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus, an attack that sparked national outrage.

The nationwide outcry led the federal government to rush through legislation doubling prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalising voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women. The law also makes it a crime for officers to refuse to open cases when complaints are made.

Official statistics say about 25,000 rapes are committed every year in India, a nation of 1.2 billion people. Activists, though, say that number is just a tiny percentage of the actual number, since victims are often pressed by family or police to stay quiet about sexual assaults.