A 39-year-old woman cab driver was found dead in her rented house in Bengaluru’s Nagashetty Halli area on Monday evening.
V Bharati, reported to be Bengaluru’s first woman cab driver by many media portals, was found hanging from the ceiling of a room at her house. “Around 7.15 pm, her neighbours informed me that she has hanged herself. Her room was not locked. We informed the police immediately,” her landlord Shankar Singh told HT.
Shankar said Bharati was in a state of depression since last few days. “A couple of days ago, she told me that she was frustrated being single…Otherwise, she had no financial problems and was paying a rent of Rs 6,500,” he said.
Bharati told Shankar that she wanted to move back to her home town.
Asked whether there were any visitors for her in the recent past, Shankar said he had not seen anyone. “She rented my house eight months ago. Since then, she has been staying alone and there were no visitors for her,” he said.
Bharati, who belongs to Singarayakonda town in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district, came to Bengaluru in 2005.
She has a sister Sarala, who was the only person she stayed in touch with.
When contacted, Sarala was not in a position to speak as she was travelling. “I am on my way to Bengaluru,” she said.
Before becoming a cab driver, Bharati had worked with an NGO Sangama in Bengaluru.
Manohar Elavarthi, who runs the NGO, told HT that Bharati was quiet, shy and unassuming. “She was not an educated woman and her language skills were poor. She had worked with us as a driver initially and then did some social activity. Since she was an efficient driver, I encouraged her to continue driving. She left us almost five years ago,” he said.
After quitting the NGO, Bharati worked as a driver with a private organisation and then bought her own cab.
“I was told she joined Uber group. The last time I spoke to her was about 3-4 days ago, when I met her at one of our meetings,” Manohar said.
Courtesy Hindustan Times