A delivery agent of the food-delivery app Zomato has been booked and arrested on Wednesday for allegedly attacking a Bengaluru-based content creator named Hitesha Chandranee.
According to the reports, the Bengaluru police have detained the delivery agent a day after Hitesha Chandranee had taken to Twitter to claim that she was attacked by the delivery executive on Tuesday after an argument over delayed delivery of food order.
Confirming the arrest, Bengaluru DCP (South East) Joshi Srinath said, “A delivery man of Zomato (in photo) has been booked and arrested for allegedly attacking a woman in Bengaluru”.
On Tuesday, the social media influencer named Hitesha Chandranee, shared a video on Instagram to allege that the delivery man attacked her after she questioned him about the delay in delivering her order.
Seen with a bloody injury on her nose, Hitesha claimed that a delivery man barged into her house and abused her after she questioned him over late delivery. Further, she said that she place an order around 3:30 pm on March 9, which was supposed to be delivered by 4:30 pm, but she did not receive it on time. Hence, she called Zomato’s customer support and requested them to cancel the order or give her free delivery.
Customer claims she was attacked, delivery agent alleges she threw ‘chappal’
As per Hitesha, she asked the delivery executive, whom she identified as Kamaraj, to wait as she talked to a customer care representative. Hitesha claimed that the delivery guy started abusing her after she refused to collect the order.
Further, Hitesha had said that she had given him a choice to cancel the order, however, the delivery agent refused to take the order back, and he started screaming at her. “I tried to shut my door, but he pushed the door, took my order from the table, that is he entered my home and punched me on my face so that I don’t get back to him, and he ran away,” the social media influencer had claimed.
However, according to a report from The News Minute, the delivery executive had refuted the allegations of Hitesha and said that she was the first to hit him with a slipper, to which he responded in self-defence. The act of self-defence by the delivery guy resulted in her getting hurt due to a door, he alleged.
Zomato apologizes for the incident
Following the controversy, Zomato had said that it will cooperate in the police investigation as well as the medical assistance that is required.
Later, it also issued a statement saying, “We deeply regret this incident & apologise to Hitesha for this traumatic experience”.
along with assistance on the medical care required. We can’t emphasise how sorry we are, rest assured we’ll take necessary actions to prevent such incidents from happening in the future. (2/n)
— zomato care (@zomatocare) March 10, 2021
“We are in touch with her and are providing our complete support through the necessary medical care and investigation. Meanwhile, we have delisted the delivery partner from our platform,” the food-delivery app said.
