Pakistani driver jailed for assaulting Dubai mall worker during lift home


Salam Al Amir
  • English
  • Arabic

DUBAI // A bus driver who sexually assaulted a saleswoman he was taking home has been jailed for three months.

Pakistani Q K was driving eight employees, including the Filipina victim, from a mall in Dubai on the evening of November 15 last year.

She said he had told her several times that he loved her and wanted her.

“He dropped everyone else off at their homes and I remained alone in the bus,” she said. “He changed the direction and when I asked him where he was going he said he was taking me to his house.

“‘I want you,’ he said to me, but I refused and asked him to take me back home.”

But the driver parked under a building in Al Hamriya, then grabbed her neck and tried to molest her. She resisted, pushing him away and unlocking the door to escape.

She said she saw a woman getting into a car and ran to it, hiding inside.

“It was about 8pm and I was getting into my car when a woman came running and hid inside my car,” said the witness R K, who is also from the Philippines.

“She told me the driver had molested her but she was very scared and I didn’t understand much from her.”

At the Dubai Criminal Court last month, the driver denied a charge of sexual assault.

He will be deported after serving his sentence.

salamir@thenational.ae

Closing the loophole on sugary drinks

As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.

The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.

Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.

Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
 

Not taxed:

Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.