Delhi Metro allow women to carry knife. (Source: File) Delhi Metro allow women to carry knife. (Source: File)

WITH an increase in the number of women commuters carrying knives for personal safety and other utility purposes, such as chopping vegetables or fruits, the CISF has decided to allow women to carry small knives — with a blade less than 4 inches long — in the Delhi metro.

CISF PRO Manjit Singh told The Indian Express, “Our personnel were constantly bringing to our notice that more and more women have been found carrying kitchen knives or small knives… Informal surveys revealed that on an average, we have been losing between one and two minutes in ensuring a knife is removed from a bag and up to four minutes in arguments and explanations which ensue as a result.”

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“Considering a conservative estimate of 25 lakh commuters travelling by the Delhi Metro daily, and a large percentage of those being women, the time lost is huge,” Singh said.

The CISF said they have also found out that many students doing courses in fashion design institutes and art colleges carry sharp instruments as part of course equipment.

Labourers also carry instruments for work. Disposing of lighters, matchboxes and knives was also posing a problem, with thousands piled up with the CISF over the years. Taking these factors into consideration, the review was taken.

While the CISF found that 90 per cent of pickpockets in the DMRC were women, Singh said, “We have never found a knife on any of the women pickpockets caught so far so we don’t think it will be a security issue.”

After deliberations and a review for over a month, the CISF on September 20 last year had released a new list of “restricted items”, which, for the first time, did not include matchboxes, lighters and small knives.

The relaxations, however, are not absolute and are subject to a case-by-case consideration by CISF personnel for security purposes, sources said.

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