Taxi union urges cabbies to cancel bookings to Himachal
The union has called all taxi owners and drivers for a meeting on July 8 to discuss the issue of cab drivers being thrashed in Himachal, as claimed in many videos doing round of social media
Azad Taxi Union (ATU) Punjab on Saturday urged the cabbies from Punjab, Haryana and Delhi to cancel all the bookings to Himachal Pradesh.
The union has called all taxi owners and drivers for a meeting on July 8 to discuss the issue of cab drivers being thrashed in Himachal, as claimed in many videos doing round of social media.
ATU president Sharanjit Kalsi said, “In the last 20 days, at least five cases of taxi drivers being seriously thrashed have surfaced. The reasons behind these cases are very petty like a wrongly parked car, or if a vehicle touches another in a traffic jam or any disagreement over anything.”
Kalsi alleged that the local police was also complacent with the troublemakers.
“Just a couple of days back an FIR was registered against six people in Shimla. I also talked to the Shimla deputy superintendent of police (DSP), but besides an assurance that we’ll investigate it, nothing much happened.”
Shimla DSP KD Sharma, when asked about the matter, said, “So far there just has been one case in my area. Last night there was a brawl between two parties, both drunk. But now they have reached a compromise.”
The union said that the drivers pay all kinds of taxes when they go to Himachal and contribute to the local economy. They said that if any of them made mistake, the locals could resolve the issue peacefully without resorting to hooliganism.
The union claimed that they will come to a consensus with the drivers and owners on July 8 on how to deal with the issue further.
Kalsi also warned if the cases of Punjabi cabbies being thrashed by locals did not stop, the union will take a massive rally into Himachal to confront those behind this. “We have warned the local police officers if they don’t control this, then we will go there in numbers and then they can try attacking us.”
Kalsi noted that these incidents only started after the actor turned politician, Kangana Ranaut, who now is a BJP MP from HP’s Mandi, was slapped by a CISF official at Chandigarh Airport.
“After that incident people became a little polarized. It all started after that,” he added.