Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing has announced it's halting operations of its carpool feature for a week. This came after a female passenger was murdered believed to be at the hands of a Didi driver in Henan Province's Zhengzhou. Sun Tianyuan has the story.

"He said I looked pretty and he wanted to kiss me, lucky I'm not sitting in the front." That was the last message sent from 21-year-old Li, from a car she was carpooling in via ride-hailing app Didi on May 6th. The flight attendant's body was found later, with a dozen fatal stab wounds. And the driver, missing. Local police in Zhengzhou said the 27-year-old male suspect Liu Zhenhua abandoned his car and jumped into a river after allegedly killing the woman.

The murder has sparked heated debate on Chinese social media. While many expressed safety concerns, some were as cold and wounding as the murderer's blade.

Enough with chauvinism, what really matters now is how to ensure the safety of all ride-hailing passengers. On Friday morning, the Ministry of Transport criticized some ride-hailing companies for failing to fulfill necessary social responsibilities.

Didi apologized, saying that they "betrayed the trust from customers", and "have an inescapable responsibility for the incident". The company also offered a 160 thousand US dollars reward for information on the suspect. But no matter how sincere the company is, that woman is gone, along with the ride-hailing giant's reputation. Sun Tianyuan, CGTN.