Man slams 10-min delivery service after road rage incident with executive

An incident of road rage where a start-up founder got attacked by a delivery executive in tech city Bengaluru is reigniting the debate on the necessity of 10-minute delivery services that allegedly put intense pressure and impossible targets on delivery agents.

A Bengaluru man hit out at delivery executives working for online food and service aggregators after he claimed to have been attacked by one such person during an alleged road rage incident. The man - identified on Twitter as Parag Jain - shared a photo of himself that was reportedly taken after the incident and shows him bleeding from the nose.

The man blamed 10-minute delivery services for putting pressure on delivery executives. ( Parag Jain/Twitter)

"Last Sunday at HSR layout, Zepto delivery person was driving over the footpath and he almost ran over me but I quickly dodge myself. I politely told him to drive cautiously. He started pushing and hitting me," Jain wrote on Twitter. "Quickly people around came and stopped him. I was injured badly and hospitalised for a few hours due to heavy nostril bleeding."

Jain said he had a 'chat' with Zepto and accused them of being 'casual about the incident'. "As expected they told me person is not employee but third party resource," he complained.

A statement from Zepto, however, said, "We take matters of safety with utmost seriousness and strongly condemn violence of any kind. We will cooperate with any investigation of the matter with competent authorities and take necessary actions based on factual outcomes."

Zepto - according to information on the company's LinkedIn page - is 'present across 10 major cities... delivers 5000+ products, including fresh fruits and vegetables, daily cooking essentials, dairy, health-and-hygiene products, etc., to Indian homes within 10 minutes...'

Jain also accused Zepto of creating 'crazy pressure on delivery personnel to keep up with 10-minute delivery promise' and said, "... it has made drivers more impatient and irresponsible."

"10-minute delivery is irrelevant competitor differentiation that got over-capitalisation... top one per cent has taken other's life to our advantage and algorithm with unnecessary needs... many have given up 10 minutes delivery (but) some are surviving over legal arbitrage."

Jain demanded Zepto be held responsible for this incident, tweeting, "Companies blame the delivery person and walk away with zero liability. I don't want the person's close ones to suffer over this. It's harder for person on daily wage to go through this."

"He didn't need to drive rashly over the footpath if Zepto hadn't pressurised..." his tweet thread concluded, tagging police, the labour ministry and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.