Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing to suspend carpool service after driver rapes and kills female passenger

Company acknowledges that it failed to respond promptly to possible warning sign about killer

On Saturday, Didi Chuxing apologised, saying it has 'inescapable responsibility' for the incident (GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

China's largest online ride-hailing platform has suspended one carpooling services and fired a pair of executives after a woman was allegedly raped and killed by one of its drivers.

Didi Chuxing took the action after the latest violent crime involving a driver, only three months after another one allegedly killed a flight attendant.

The deaths prompted a wave of public complaints that the company was not doing enough to ensure the safety of its users, who it says book 30 million rides daily.

Police in the city of Yueqing in the eastern Zhejiang province said they arrested a Didi driver who admitted raping and killing the 20-year-old woman.

The firm has subsequently apologised, saying it has “inescapable responsibility” for the incident.

The victim had used the carpooling service in the afternoon and after getting into a car had sent a text message to her friends calling for help, police said.

Didi Chuxing will halt its Hitch carpooling service, one of several ride-hailing options available on Didi‘s platform.

The company acknowledged that it failed to respond promptly to a possible warning sign about the driver who allegedly killed the woman on Friday, saying that the platform had received a complaint a day earlier from another passenger about him.

That passenger had complained that the driver repeatedly asked her to sit in front, drove them to a remote spot, and followed her for a while even after she got out of the car, Didi Chuxing said in a statement.

“Our customer service promises to reply to customers within two hours but we failed and did not carry out an investigation into this complaint in a timely way. No matter what reasons we had, we shoulder inescapable responsibility,” it said.

Associated Press