An year after a Singaporean tourist was overcharged, authorities finally traced the errant taxi driver. Usually, there has become a trend among Mumbai taxi drivers that they try shelling out extra money from tourists.
The same happened with a Singaporean tourist, named Raymond Yeo who later lodged a complaint with the Prime Minister’s Office. This led to hunting the driver and suspending his license.
What exactly happened?
Usually, Raymond regularly visits Mumbai for leisure or business purpose. On his trip, the driver charged him Rs.500 for just 1 km from hotel The Lalit to T2 Terminal on the 11th of April 2015. Initially, the driver had quoted Rs.200 but later demanded cost for ‘excessive baggage’. He paid Rs.500 and also sent a complaint to PM Modi’s office. Later, it reached the Bandra office of Maharashtra Transport commissioner and the driver named Jamil Ahmad Khan from Marol was finally tracked. Initially, he denied these allegations, but later, there were pictures as a proof. Yesterday, his license was suspended and cab’s travel permit was withdrawn for a month. RTO officials say this cab is owned by Mahek Tours and Travels in Thane.
What Raymond had to say?
Raymond stated he was quite surprised that the officials had taken action over this issue. He did an online search wherein a complaint could be registered with the PMO. The registration number of the taxi was mentioned. He didn’t expect that the issue would be taken seriously and action would be taken. His only aim was highlighting this issue because he wanted to save other tourists from the same.
How the driver was tracked?
After the complaint was lodged, the entire process of vehicle registration started. The Shahpur address that was listed in the files of RTO doesn’t exist, found the officials. The insurance records of that car helped in finding the correct address. But then, the driver or vehicle owner couldn’t be found. At this time, Binu Varghese, a social activist helped the RTO. He along with a group of volunteers were at the international airport keeping a watch at Khan, wherein he usually picked the customers. The license plate number of the cab was shared with volunteers and 1 of them spotted that car on the 2nd of April.