A 'captain' of popular ride-sharing service Careem recorded himself on video hurling abuses at and threatening a customer with violence because the latter brought a lit cigarette into the former's car.
The harrowing video was circulated widely on social media on Saturday.
It shows the visibly worked up captain hurling a stream of verbal abuses at the customer, who is sitting next to him in the front passenger seat of his car.
The customer, realising that the incident is being filmed, asks at least twice that the driver stop.
"Who do you think you are? How dare you throw a cigarette in my car," the driver says while intermittently verbally abusing the passenger. "Is this your father's car? How dare you get inside?"
The passenger, on the other hand, tries to explain that his cigarette fell on the car's floor mat by mistake, but to no avail.
"I put air conditioning in this car for you; do you even have a fan at home," the captain asks the speechless passenger at one point. The question is followed by more abuse, even as the passenger tries to reiterate that the cigarette fell on the floor by mistake.
"Apologise to me," the driver threatens the passenger a few times.
Seemingly having heard enough, the passenger is later seen taking his mobile phone out, at which the captain — once again resorting to abuse — threatens that if the customer is going to make phone calls, he only needs to "send his live location" after which "everyone" is going to show up.
The 'live location' feature in popular messaging app Whatsapp allows anyone to see where the person sharing his location is at the moment. It can be used as a tool to rendezvous.
While the captain does not explicitly say what his friends and acquaintances are going to do, it is clear that it is a threat of violence.
As the customer silently keeps using his phone, the driver addresses his audience, saying: "This is the kind of passengers Careem has, and when we complain our [Careem] IDs get blocked."
The customer then gets off, saying that he has noted the number of the captain's car. This triggers more abuse from the driver.
The clip ends abruptly as the customer loses his composure and responds with abuse from his end as well.
In a second video, uploaded with the first one, the driver is seen accusing the customer of having turned violent off-camera and damaging his car. He then shows a broken side mirror and a shattered back window as 'proof' of his claim.
In an emailed response, Careem said it is "looking into the case from all sides and [is] in touch with relevant parties. We hope to resolve the situation as soon as possible."
