‘A taxi driver beat me up in front of KLCC and nobody helped’

Editor’s note: Kavya Kriti, 23, an expatriate from New Delhi, India, has been living and working in Kuala Lumpur for the past seven months. On Sept 6, she lodged a police report against a taxi driver for punching her in the face and head multiple times just in front of the Petronas Twin Towers. We understand that the taxi driver has since been sentenced to jail and fined.

Kavya reached out to us to have her story published. Here, she narrates the shocking incident that took place the night she and her friends went looking for a cab in the heart of KL.

What do you get for standing up for yourself to a cab driver in the bustling city centre of Kuala Lumpur?

Catcalled, verbally abused, and ruthlessly assaulted might not be the first answer that comes to your head, but this was the answer I received a few weeks back. You might be thinking that there is more to the story or something that I’m not telling you. Kuala Lumpur is a modern city after all; this couldn’t just happen to anybody, right? Would you be surprised if I told you that this was all because I refused to pay a ridiculously inflated cab fare?

If you are, you shouldn’t be.

I got punched in the head and face multiple times right in the heart of KL for simply standing up to a bunch of taxi drivers who decided to degrade and debase me after I refused to pay the obscene flat rate they proposed.

I started to walk away after they refused my proposal to go by the meter. Sounds just business as usual, right? Wrong. It seems they weren’t ok with the fact that a woman snubbed them, so what ensued was a barrage of catcalls and insults based on what I was wearing. “Strange” I thought, walking away with my friend as the aggression grew with every step we took. I don’t deserve this.

Eventually, I decided to turn around and confront the guy. I was not going to let him dehumanise me at his free will. Not because I didn’t want to pay an absurd price for a 10-minute ride and definitely not because I was wearing something that looked good on me as on my way out for a fun night with some friends.

Read  More: https://my.news.yahoo.com/taxi-driver-beat-front-klcc-083319978.html