In a disturbing video that’s making the rounds on Twitter and Instagram, a Bengaluru-based model, Hitesha Chandranee alleged that a Zomato delivery executive physically assaulted her. After her video got viral and netizens showed their fury in the comment section, the delivery boy was arrested and booked for the alleged assault. The video uploaded by social media influencer Hitesha has garnered more than 14 lakh views.

In the world of hustle, not everyone possesses cooking skills and is left at the mercy of food delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. From the ease of ordering to getting delicious food delivered to your doorstep within minutes of ordering, online food delivery has changed the game. But with that also comes unique challenges. Some more dangerous than others. For instance, when a Bengaluru-based beauty influencer ordered food from Zomato, she was allegedly assaulted by the delivery executive and was left bleeding.

Video of Hitesha Chandranee after being assaulted (Trigger warning: Violence, Assault)

Where it all started 

In the video uploaded by the alleged victim of the incident, Chandranee claimed that when her Zomato order was delayed, she tried taking a follow-up with the Zomato customer care and requested them to either cancel the order or give it for free due to the delay. As she was figuring the situation, her door was knocked by the delivery person who came with the order.

Chandranee asked the delivery person to wait as she was still having a discussion with customer care. She alleged that the man then started to shout and refused to take the order back. Due to the delivery man’s aggressive shouting, Chandranee felt threatened and tried to close the door. Situations went south after this point as the delivery boy allegedly barged into her house, took her order from her table, punched her in the face and fled.

“So guys my Zomato delivery order was late and I was talking to the customer care executive. And meanwhile, the delivery person just did this. He hit me, left me bleeding here and ran off.”  Chandranee claimed in the video. After the alleged altercation, Chandranee called out for help but her neighbours failed to respond.

Chandranee takes action, Reaches out to Zomato

Chandranee took immediate action and posted a video right after the altercation where she was visibly shaking and had a bloody nose. In the video, she tagged Zomato’s customer care account along with other social media personalities like Viral Biyani in an effort to gain as much attention as possible. The video of Chandranee sharing her woes with tears in her eyes was even aired by some news channels on TV.

Soon Zomato reacted to her post and tweeted saying, “We can assure you this is not the experience our delivery universe stands for. Our local representative shall be in touch with you shortly to help you with the police investigation along with assistance on the medical care required.”

The food-delivery startup also apologized and said, “Rest assured we’ll take necessary actions to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.”

Chandranee’s selfie video of her whimpering in a dire state infuriated netizens and soon Twitteratis slammed Zomato in the comment section. People called out the food-delivery unicorn about their unsafe delivery standards and raised questions regarding the safety of women. Their questions and suspicions were met by Zomato’s quick reply saying, “Hey there, we can assure you this is not the experience our delivery universe uphold. Our local team is in touch with Hitesha to help her with the police investigation along with assistance on the medical care required.”

 

On March 11, ANI reported that the Zomato delivery man was arrested for assaulting the woman.

Zomato Delivery Horror Stories

This is not the first time Zomato came under fire from Indian consumers and netizens for their unprofessional delivery fleet. In 2018, a video went viral on Twitter where a Zomato delivery executive was seen eating from a packet of food. The man was then seen carefully closing the lid of the box and keeping it inside his delivery case. The man continued his act with another food package. Once he was done, he took out a signature red coloured Zomato tape and sealed the bag.

The video made rounds on Twitter and Zomato was grilled by Twitter users for not being able to maintain its standards. While a lot of people made jokes and memes, some people questioned the unprofessional act.

Soon after Zomato issued an apology in one of their blog posts and wrote, “We take these kinds of reports extremely seriously and upon thorough investigation, we’ve found that the video was shot in Madurai. The person in the video happened to be a delivery partner on our fleet. We have spoken to him at length – and while we understand that this was a human error in judgement, we have taken him off our platform.”