After a reported rape by an Uber driver in Delhi, police and transportation authorities had to search the Internet to understand the rideshare service, which has operated in the city since September 2013.

The transport department of Delhi apparently had no idea that one of the world’s most high-profile rideshare companies was operating in the capital city.

And it is only following a woman’s accusation of rape against an Uber driver on the night of Friday, Dec. 5, that the city’s government has finally woken up: It banned the service in the national capital region on Monday, Dec. 8.

The authorities say they had not blacklisted the company, which was purportedly flouting many local transport laws, earlier because they did not know it existed in the first place.

“Right now, we have banned Uber as we came to know only after this incident about its services in Delhi. We too had to log on to the Internet to know how the company works,” Satish Mathur, special commissioner of Delhi Transport Department, told Economic Times.

Until Monday, Uber was operating in 11 cities across India including Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Bangalore. It launched in September 2013 and much has been written about the San Francisco-based company in the Indian press, including its flamboyant promotional campaigns.

It also had a high-profile run in with the Reserve Bank of India earlier this year, which forced it to change its payment mechanism in the country. But the Delhi government was seemingly oblivious to all of this.

“Uber never applied for any permission to us, is not recognized under the Radio Taxi Rules and has flouted most of the laid-down rules,” Mathur said.