Tangra: App-cab aggregator Uber conveyed to police on Monday that the driver arrested for an alleged attempt to kidnap a 21-year-old passenger did "deviate" from the designated route to her destination, causing her to panic and jump out of the vehicle at the first opportunity.

Driver Keshab Prasad, 52, has been remanded in police custody for five days.

During several rounds of interrogation since his arrest on Sunday, Keshab maintained that he had followed the route displayed on the navigation screen of his phone. But a senior officer in Lalbazar, the city police headquarters, said Uber's technical team had found out that the driver veered off the route.

The 21-year-old woman had grabbed the driver's phone off the dashboard and tried to break a windowpane so she could call for help after the car deviated from the route and went through Tangra's narrow, dark lanes for half an hour on Saturday evening.

She failed to break the glass but succeeded in unlocking the left front door as the car slowed. As she jumped out and shouted for help, passers-by intercepted the car and informed the police.

When Metro contacted Uber for comment, the official who spoke declined to share the exact information that the company had given to the police. He only said that the company was "extending all possible help to the investigating team".

Keshab has been booked under Section 365 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with "kidnapping or abduction with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine a person". If comvicted, he is liable to be sentenced to jail for up to seven years.

"The driver told us the woman was supposed to get off at Gobra Road and he had followed the route shown on the navigation screen of his phone," said an officer at Tangra police station. "He claimed to have told the woman when she protested that he was following the route that leads to her home."

The complainant was Keshab's last passenger during the UberPool ride. She had boarded the app cab at Shyambazar.

Her two fellow passengers alighted at Fariapukur and Bidhan Sarani, after which the driver allegedly deviated from the route to her destination.

The woman told the police that she had asked Keshabwhy he was taking a different route when he took a left towards Tangra from the Sealdah flyover instead of going straight to hit CIT Road.

Asked whether the driver could be booked for kidnapping for going off the route, an officer said: "The woman has stated in her complaint that she asked the driver repeatedly to stop the car, but he did not."

If a passenger asks a driver to stop, the person is bound to do so, the officer said. "If he continues driving and ignoring the passenger's will, it is a criminal offence. "

Investigators have recorded the statements of some persons who saw the woman jump out of the car at Baishali More in Tangra.