Mumbai Local Murder: Mobiles Role in Emergency Response?

N. Raghuraman, Management Guru

For me, four and a half decades ago, the Mumbai local train journey from Dombivali to VT (now CSMT) remained like a spiritual journey over the years. The reason was the groups singing bhajans in the train compartment. My mother would specially pack some snacks, which would be offered to God as Naivedyam and then distributed among everyone. Due to this, the everyday boring journey was transformed into a beautiful experience of devotion.

Naivedyam was distributed not only to the group members but also to everyday travelers and unknown co-travellers. People also used to take Prasad with full devotion. In the evening the same group would gather again and return home. While returning, some would play cards, some chess, some Antakshari. Some bachelor boys would chop vegetables in the train itself, so that it would be easier to cook food after reaching home. Every person in the group used to give his seat to others while alighting.

It was not that there were never fights over closing the door of the compartment, especially in the rain. But whenever such a debate would take place, a voice from within the group would calm down the intervening people. In the next ten minutes, the people who were opposing the closing of the door would close the door and start singing bhajans along with the group. There was always one cheerful person in the group, whom everyone called the “King of Compromise”. The purpose of the group was to ensure that everyone was working hard, so that no one should go to work in a bad mood.

I remembered this old journey of mine after hearing about a horrifying incident that happened on Tuesday night. It was the first rain of the season in Mumbai and two men, Mayank Lohar (aged 22) and Roshan Suvarna, were standing near the door of a local compartment. Co-passengers asked to close the door, to which Mayank agreed but Roshan did not.

When Mayank tried to forcefully close the door, an intoxicated Roshan angrily took out a dagger from the bag and stabbed Mayank several times in the stomach and chest. Mayank died while being taken to the hospital. There were more than thirty people in that first class compartment and I believe that none of them would like violence. Yet, no one helped the victim, nor stopped the attack. Some people did call the police, but most kept making videos of the attack and its aftermath. The videos on social media are solid proof of this.

Let’s assume that the passengers were scared and in shock. But who stopped them from shouting loudly? If everyone had made noise together, the murderer’s attention could have been diverted. If they all had trusted each other like a bhajan group, a group fond of cards or chess or playing Antakshari, then Roshan would not have been able to outweigh 30 people.

Unfortunately, everyone in that group was completely ‘alone’. Perhaps they thought that making videos was a safe way to stay out of the danger zone. Otherwise, how did Roshan escape from the slowing down train after stabbing Mayank and how did he remain missing for 15 hours before being caught by the police? Psychologically, everyone in the train kept thinking that some other person, perhaps someone more powerful, would intervene and in this thinking everyone remained a spectator.

The bottom line is that We have to make our minds understand that instead of walking ‘alone’ in the crowd, we need to live as a society and think about the collective well-being.

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