Mid-Day Opinion: Wiser to keep one’s cool in a heated train

Representation pic

Our local trains are becoming battlegrounds, with verbal altercations breaking out and escalating from the verbal to intensely violent, inside the trains.

A one off recent incident outside occurred where we reported abouta man running on a train platform with a stick and panic ensued.

Fortunately, he was nabbed without further incident and the matter ended there.

Then we had two women arguing heatedly inside a train and pepper spray was used by one of them, attacking the other. While there have been physical fights inside, using pepper spray is a new one and an indicator that people are willing to use what they have as weapons to attack each otger. Another incident reported was two men getting into a physical fight inside a compartment with both suffering head injuries and taken to hospital as a result.

This shows that our Railway commuters are always on slow churn because of the numbers, the atmosphere, the rush hour are getting increasingly dangerous. The infra stays the same but there are short fuses of people and more audacious attacks, where people are enraged and emboldened enough to use weapons. Short fuse means people are getting triggered over small reasons.

Calm instead of confrontation. Dialogue works instead of fisticuffs. Words in place of weapons. Patience and even the wisdom of not putting yourself at mortal risk with pushing and shoving near a compartment door, taking on someone with a sharp instrument o even a group. Swallow anger and ego. Report to Railway police if you wish to. Let us exercise some restraint. Our trains and stations are fraught with risk because of a number of uncontrollable factors. Controlling one's conduct means safety to the commute.