Uber driver arrested for assault, footage surfaces online

An Uber driver was arrested for a physical altercation with at least two women over the weekend, police confirm.

Officers responded to reports of a male driver striking two people in the area of the The Westin Harbour Castle near Harbour Square and Yonge Street at approximately 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. One woman was transported to hospital with a finger fracture on her left hand.

Mohammed Mahbubul Haque, 42, was arrested on scene with one count of assault.

A day later, a video posted to YouTube shows an aggressive assault of at least one woman in downtown Toronto.

According to Maria Mughal, the video captures the assault that happened to her and three other females on their way to the docks near the Ferry Terminal Saturday evening.

It begins with gut-wrenching screams from a woman being violently pulled out of the passenger seat of a car by a man who slams the car door behind her. The voice of another woman, likely filming the incident, confronts the driver while a third woman is heard calling police.

Mughal said she, her two friends and an 11-year-old girl ordered an Uber around 6:30 p.m. from her downtown condo at King Street West and Spadina Avenue.

Once they all loaded into the car, Mughal said she tried to direct the driver in order to avoid traffic and told him to take Spadina all the way down to Queen’s Quay.

“Then he started shouting: ‘You know, you are a Pakistani Muslim woman! You don’t know how to pronounce the street names, you don’t know the way, this is not the way to go from Spadina!'”

According to her, the driver got caught in traffic on Spadina Avenue and complained about how much money he was losing as a result, getting progressively angrier throughout the ride.

After getting on Front Street, Mughal said the driver passed the address she requested by a few blocks and told them to get out. After a brief exchange, Mughal caught the driver taking their picture as they exited the car and got back inside to confront the man.

That’s when she said the driver walked over to the other side of the vehicle and physically removed her from the car.

Mughal said her friend was able to capture the assault on camera right as the driver got out. She said he dug his fingernails in her arm and threw her to the ground, which caused her to fracture her finger and bruise her knees.

Uber Canada said they have since removed Haque from their platform and that his actions were ‘unacceptable.’

“The actions by this driver-partner are unacceptable and fail to meet our expectations at every level and as a result, have removed his access to the Uber platform. We are reaching out to everyone involved to understand what may have caused this situation to get to this point,” read Uber’s statement.