An Indian court has found an Uber driver guilty of raping a female passenger in his taxi in the Indian capital last year.
The Press Trust of India says Tuesday that Shiv Kumar Yadav was also convicted of criminal intimidation, kidnapping, and endangering the woman’s life.
The 26-year old woman had hired the cab for a ride home from work.
The woman, an executive for a finance company, dozed off in the taxi as she was returning home from dinner with friends.
The woman had told police she woke to find the taxi parked in a secluded place where the driver assaulted and raped her, before dumping her near her home in north New Delhi.
The rape in December last year prompted widespread protests in India against sexual violence and led to demands for more effort to ensure women’s safety.
The incident dealt a blow to Uber, which has attracted global popularity and controversy with a service that lets passengers summon cars through an app in more than 250 cities around the world.
Sentencing is expected on Friday.
The fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012 unleashed outrage about the high number of attacks of women in India and inadequate efforts to keep them safe.
In response to that attack, the government doubled the maximum prison term for rape to 20 years, created special courts to prosecute cases more quickly, and made voyeurism and acid attacks specific crimes under the law.
India’s National Crime Records Bureau says more than 2,000 girls and women were raped in New Delhi in 2014.
