LAHORE: Toba Tek Singh police have registered a case against a junior officer of a national security agency for harassing a woman passenger after he was handed over to them by the National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP).

According to police, a software engineer by profession, the complainant woman had booked a ride from Lahore to Multan through an online service on Sunday night at 11pm.

The driver of the online cab, who picked her up from the given location in the Punjab Cooperative Housing Society, Lahore, turned out to be a junior officer of a national security agency, the police said.

Faisalabad Regional Police Officer (RPO) Dr Mohammad Abid confirmed to Dawn about the incident and that the cab driver was a junior officer of a national security agency.

The suspect was driving online cab

The RPO said Toba Tek Singh police have lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against the cab driver on the complaint of the woman.

According to the written complaint submitted by the woman, after picking her from Lahore the driver took the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway without informing her.

She said that after covering some distance, the driver asked her to drive the cab as he was not feeling well.

However, when she accepted his request and began to drive, he started making her video without her permission, she added.

She said on reaching Bhera, she realised that they were on way to Islamabad and not Multan.

On her protest, however, the driver turned the car back to Lahore.

She alleged that during the journey, the driver made two harassment attempts – one in a rest

area on the Lahore-Islamabad motorway and another at a deserted patch on the Lahore-Multan motorway, but she turned him away on both occasions by offering resistance.

Following the two harassment attempts, she said that she called on motorway police emergency helpline 130.

On her call, she said, a team of motorway police reached the spot and during inquiries the driver disclosed that he was an officer of a national security agency from Sialkot. However, she said the NH&MP officials took the driver into custody and handed him over to the Toba Tek Singh police.

The NH&MP officials confirmed the complainant’s account, saying they responded to her emergency call at 7:45am and took the suspect into custody near TT Singh interchange.

A police official, seeking anonymity, said it was yet to be investigated that despite being a security agency officer, why the suspect was working as an online cab driver and traveled all the way from Sialkot to Lahore to pick the complainant.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2023