A question Ms Low of SMRT Corp should answer herself

In an earlier posting, I had highlighted a letter published in TODAY headlined "An abandoned bag on MRT train". The writer, one Valen Luah, was on an MRT train between the City Hall and Dhoby Ghaut stations at around 12.45 pm on a particular Friday when he or she saw the abandoned bag on a seat. Another passenger, a man, used the emergency intercom to report the bag.

Below is from Valen Luah's letter:

"Instead of being told what to do in this situation, the response was that an MRT officer would attend to the matter later. Disturbed, the man asked what if the bag contained a bomb?

"As it turned out, an officer was waiting at the next station and he asked the surrounding passengers if any of them owned the bag.

"Then, without examining the bag, he lifted it to take it away -- for that brief instant, my heart skipped a beat.

"For all the public awareness campaigns on ensuring that our trains remain secure, was that officer properly trained to provide commuters the assurance that any emergency situation would be ably handled?"

I then commented in my posting that a response from the train operator will surely come.

It did, and I was astonished! Let me reproduce it here:

"SMRT staff adhered to SOP" (TODAY, 22 April, page 24)
Letter from Bernadette Low, Senior Manager, Corporate Marketing & Communication, SMRT Corporation

We refer to Valen Luah's letter (April 18) on an abandoned bag on an MRT train.

When a passenger activates the emergency communication button on our train to alert the Train Officer (TO) of a situation on board the train, the TO will relay immediately the information to the Operations Control Centre so that it can activate staff at the nearest station to attend to the matter.

Our station staff are trained to assess if a package left behind is suspicious and requires further checks. In the instance which the writer had witnessed, the staff saw a black sling bag on the train seat, and took swift actions according to our standard operating procedure. We hope this clarifies.

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No, it does not clarify, and I hope Valen Luah writes in to say he is shocked that SMRT is prepared to take the chance that this was just a harmless bag and could be lifted off just like that -- and without the staff member asking passengers to calmly leave the train first (if he wanted to be a hero, that's his choice, SOP or not).

I have just one question to ask Ms Low: Will you -- and I mean you as yourself  -- pick up the bag just like that, and in front of nearby passengers?