The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Friday lifted prohibition on knives for women passenger in favour of ‘self-defence’.
The capital's prime transporter, however, came up with a clarification that knives inside metro coaches are an old decision.
There were reports that the decision was taken in the wake of Bengaluru mass-molestation incidents.
The ban on carrying knives aboard metro coaches was lifted two months back in November and it was not for enabling women to defend themselves, the DMR said.
It said these small knives, which women may carry to cut fruits in their tiffin-boxes, show up in the scan machine while going through checks at the stations. It was only to save the time that goes into physical checks that the Metro decided to let go of the prohibition completely.
"It usually takes one and half minutes to check the tiffin-box in case the scan shows the knife. On the other hand, about 8-9 lakh women passengers commute by Metro daily. Imagine the time we would end up spending checking the tiffin boxes. So, we decided to lift the prohibition only for such knives," Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) spokesperson Manjeet said.
"It has nothing to do with Metro promoting self-defence or with the Bengaluru molestation. Such interpretations are false," he added.
Many newspapers and news-websites talked of the move as a great step towards women empowerment and also misreported its timing as coming into effect on Friday.
