Didi Chuxing Murder Case: Official: Ensuring safety of passengers is the basic line

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Welcome back to China 24. The Ministry of Transportation says ensuring the safety of passengers is the basic line of the car-hailing industry. The announcement comes after a young woman was murdered, while taking a ride on China's leading online ride-hailing platform, DiDi Chuxing. Omar Khan has more.

This was the last time the 21-year-old flight attendant was seen. She landed in Henan's capital Zhengzhou, and used Didi to hitch a ride into the city. Her last text message was to a colleague, complaining that the Didi driver was calling her beautiful and demanding to kiss her. But it was at that moment, that the driver uninstalled the app, and virtually erased any track record of where he was headed.

ZHAO GUANGCHAO ZHENGZHOU PUBLIC SECURITY "The driver didn't take the girl to her destination. No signal of his car could be found on the platform then. Didi said his data was gone. It's abnormal."

No one knew where the driver was heading for. The GPS in his car showed he stopped in a desolate area far away from the city center for nearly half an hour. The police believe that was when and where the tragedy began.

ZHOU ZHAOZHAO ZHENGZHOU PUBLIC SECURITY "We also received messages from people around that the driver was there. He stopped at the place for quite a long time. We have reasons to believe he was committing murder."

The driver died after he abandoned his car and jumped into a river. Didi has admitted fault and apologized. The Chinese Ministry of Transport has also announced plans to enhance regulation of the car-hailing industry. It says more needs to be done to verify the qualification of potential drivers and to provide them with safety training and education. CGTN.