There’s a twist in the tale in which a Zomato customer had been left bleeding after an altercation with a Zomato delivery partner.
Kamraj, the delivery partner who’d allegedly hit a customer and left her bleeding, has opened up about the incident as well, and his version contradicts many of the claims made by Instagram influencer. He says that Hitesha, the woman who’d placed the order, had first thrown a chappal at him, and had injured herself with her own ring. “After I reached her apartment door, I handed her the food and I was expecting her to pay me,” Kamaraj told The News Minute. “I apologised since the delivery was delayed due to traffic and bad roads. But she was very rude from the outset. She asked me ‘Why are you late?’ I replied apologetically, as there were road blocks due to ongoing civic works and there were traffic jams as well. But she kept on insisting that the order has to be delivered within 45-50 minutes,” he adds.
Kamaraj says the woman took the food, and then refused to pay for the order. She said she then started talking with Zomato chat support. Fearing that he will lose money, he pleaded that she pay for the order, he says. “At this point, she called me a ‘slave’ and then she started shouting ‘What can you do?’ In the meantime, Zomato support told me that they have cancelled the order from their end based on her request and I asked her to return the food but she did not cooperate,” he adds.
Kamraj says that he decided that he would leave the apartment building without taking her food. “At this point, when I was walking towards the lift, she started using expletives in Hindi. She suddenly threw slippers at me and started hitting me. For my safety, when she was hitting me, I tried to use my hand to shield her blows,” he says. “When she was trying to push my hand away, she accidentally hit herself with her finger ring on the nose, which led to the bleeding. Anybody who sees her face, will understand that this wouldn’t be created by a punch. And I don’t wear any rings,” he says. In her Instagram video which has gone viral, Hitesha can be seen wearing a ring. “I am working on this job for more than two years and this is the first time that I have had to go through this kind of an ordeal,” Kamraj says.
Zomato also seemed to indicate that Kamraj might not have been fully at fault, with the company saying that it would pay for his legal expenses, and adding that he’d made over 5000 deliveries on the platform with an average rating of 4.75/5. “Right from the get go, our topmost priority has been to get to the truth. Towards that, we are helping both Hitesha and Kamaraj (our delivery partner) with all the support they need while the investigation is pending. We are also assisting the police in whichever way asked. We are in constant touch with Hitesha, covering her medical expenses, and helping her with the proceedings. We are also in constant touch with Kamaraj, extending all possible support to make sure both sides of the story come to light and that due process is followed in the spirit of fairness,” Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal wrote in a note.
“As per protocol, we have temporarily suspended Kamaraj from active deliveries, but are covering his earnings in the interim while there’s an active police investigation. We are also covering his legal expenses pertaining to the case. Also, for the record – Kamaraj has made -5,000 deliveries for us so far, and has a 4.75/5 star rating on our platform (which is one of the highest), and has been working with us for 26 months now,” he added.
The police are currently investigating the incident.