'Rabid' Cab Driver Bit This Man And Slammed His Daughter To The Ground

All he wanted to do was help the lady struggling to drive past the haphazardly-parked taxi in the middle of the road.

Bitten for...asking someone to follow traffic rules?

bangalore mirror

The driver was in the errant vehicle, talking loudly on the phone. All he did was tap on the window of the vehicle and request the cabbie to move. Instead, 33-year-old Vishwas Basavaraj was pushed, pummeled, and bitten - twice - by the cabbie who also allegedly threw his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter to the ground in an extreme case of road rage in Sanjaynagar last week.

The assault unfolded as Vishwas reportedly questioned the cabbie for having parked his vehicle in the middle of the main road, obstructing traffic; and the victim was bitten so badly by the cab driver that he had to be administered an anti-rabies vaccine! The incident is said to have occurred on the evening of July 3, around 6 PM, as Vishwas was carrying his daughter on his shoulders as the duo was out walking their dog on 2nd Main Road, Sanjaynagar.

Vishwas is the founder and owner of Kennel vom Wolfen-Haus in NGEF Layout, Sanjaynagar, where only pedigree German Shepherds are bred. The victim was out walking his puppy with his daughter when they neared the Raghavendra temple, and Vishwas noticed a cab (KA-02-AD-8333) parked in the middle of the road, blocking traffic. The driver was inside the car, talking on the phone, without a care that he was hindering the movement of other vehicles.

"If only I had minded my own business..."

A lady doctor in her car was approaching from the opposite direction and stopped just in front of the cab, unable to move. Despite repeated honks and gestures from her asking him to move his vehicle, the cabbie ignored her.

"If only I had minded my own business. I wanted to help the lady and get someone to follow the rules; I thought I was carrying out a basic duty like any civilian. I went and tapped on the cab driver's window, asking him to park to the side of the road.

That's when he got abusive and began hurling abuses and obscenities at me. Suddenly, without warning, he grabbed my collar and pulled me inside the vehicle to threaten me, and then pushed my daughter causing her to fall headfirst to the ground," Vishwas told the Bangalore Mirror. If that wasn't bad enough, the enraged cabbie then got out of the car, lunged at Vishwas, and bit his thumb. Despite a crowd of nearly 20 onlookers, not one of them came forward to help, even as Vishwas struggled to get to his mortified and bleeding daughter while trying to defend himself.

But the cabbie wasn't done just yet. "He was extremely frustrated for some reason, and took it all out on me. As I was trying to hold on to my daughter, he lunged at me again and this time, bit me on my torso. In the melee that lasted almost 20 minutes, my spectacles broke, and I also lost my gold chain. I noted down the registration number of the cab and rushed my daughter to the hospital. The incident occurred around 6 PM, but it took till 3 AM to get a CT scan done for her as she was so terrified," the victim added.

Stitches, surgery and a rabies vaccine!

The tot was admitted with injuries to the head and wrist and underwent a CT scan, while Vishwas received two stitches on his face and had to have his thumbnail removed as a result of the first bite.

Due to the violent nature of the attack, doctors recommended the victim receive an anti-rabies vaccine for the bite on his torso! Meanwhile, the North division police confirmed the incident and said the accused had been arrested but that he had obtained bail. "This is the last time I try to help someone on the road. People generally wonder why there is no more humanity. It is incidents like these that put people off helping others. The only person who cooperated and helped us after the incident was the lady doctor, who was guilt-stricken thinking the fight was her fault. But at the end of the day, our entire society is to blame," Vishwas added.

(Originally published in the Bangalore Mirror)