Bengaluru: A Bengaluru-based food delivery boy was arrested on Monday for allegedly sexually harassing a woman over the phone after she refused to accept a parcel she had ordered online earlier and pay for it.
According to Bangalore Mirror, the delivery boy wanted to “teach her a lesson” for refusing the delivery. He passed her phone number on a WhatsApp group, claiming she was an escort, after which she received several calls overnight.
Smitha (name changed), a resident of JP Nagar, filed a complaint with the police stating that on Friday, she had ordered food from McDonald’s through Foodpanda, an online food ordering platform. She said that the delivery boy who came to drop the order, stared at her and passed lewd comments.
Just half an hour after he left, she started receiving calls on her mobile phone from the same delivery boy who spoke innuendos and started asking her for sexual favours. Smitha scolded him and disconnected the call.
However, things did not end there and she started receiving more calls from different men who sought sex and asked her how much she charged. Till the time of registering a complaint with the police, had received as many as 14 different calls on her number.
When police investigated all the numbers Smitha received calls from, they all clearly pointed towards Shreyas, the same delivery boy. He later confessed to the police about the harassment.
“According to Shreyas, there had been a row between the woman and him when he went to deliver he food. He claimed she did not like the delivered item and asked him to take back the parcel. Shreyas told her that was not possible,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) SD Sharanappa told Bangalore Mirror.
Sharanappa further said that she refused to pay him for the order, after which he kept the order at her place and left. He then sent her mobile number to a WhatsApp group, claiming that she was an escort.
Meanwhile, the police said they would detain those who called Smitha seeking sex.
“A team is working on the case, we have got the details on almost all the callers and we will arrest them shortly,” said Sharanappa.
Shreyas told police that he wanted to teach her a lesson for refusing the order and make payments.
McDonald’s responded to the incident with a statement:
“We, along with our partners, are investigating the incident involving a complaint regarding threatening and sexual abusive calls to a customer. Though such cases are extremely rare, we take allegations against any of our third-party service providers extremely seriously and, if substantiated, will always take the strongest possible act-ion. We will extend our full support to the customer and will cooperate with the local authorities, in every manner possible,” said the spokesperson for McDonald’s India – west and south.
