Mumbai local train murder stuns commuters

Mumbai: A routine commute to home on a dark rain-soaked night in a Mumbai local turned into a nightmare when a 22-year-old commuter was allegedly stabbed to death inside a first-class compartment following a heated argument over shutting the train door, late on Tuesday. The victim, identified as Mayank Lohar, 22, worked as a salesman with a private company in Andheri and lived in Virar, nearly 60 km from Churchgate. According to Western Railway (WR) and Government Railway Police (GRP)...

min read

Mumbai local train murder stuns commuters

Mumbai: A routine commute to home on a dark rain-soaked night in a Mumbai local turned into a nightmare when a 22-year-old commuter was allegedly stabbed to death inside a first-class compartment following a heated argument over shutting the train door, late on Tuesday. The victim, identified as Mayank Lohar, 22, worked as a salesman with a private company in Andheri and lived in Virar, nearly 60 km from Churchgate. According to Western Railway (WR) and Government Railway Police (GRP) officials, the shocking incident took place aboard the Churchgate-Nalasopara Fast Local (Train No. 90663), which left Churchgate at 10.05 pm and reached Andheri at 10.42 pm. As the train pulled out of Andheri, heavy rains started lashing the city. Lohar reportedly requested a fellow commuter standing near the doorway to shut the door, as rainwater was blowing into the compartment and inconveniencing those seated inside. The other commuter, wearing a dark shirt and trousers, allegedly refused and it started a heated verbal exchange which quickly escalated into a raging argument as the train raced through Goregaon and Malad. Then, in a horrifying burst of violence, the suspect allegedly pulled out a knife and repeatedly stabbed Lohar in the abdomen and chest as the train zoomed past Kandivali. Stunned Silence The other terrified commuters watched in stunned silence as the attack unfolded and ended within a matter of minutes claiming the young boy. Writhing in pain and bleeding profusely, Lohar collapsed onto the compartment floor as panic gripped the passengers and they scrambled away from the attacker, who reportedly continued to pace about menacingly. Eyewitnesses later said that as the train slowed while entering Borivali station’s Platform No. 6, the suspect calmly jumped off, ran up the staircase and vanished into the wet darkness. When the train halted at Borivali at 11.04 pm, the other commuters immediately alerted railway authorities. WR, GRP and medical personnel rushed to the platform within minutes with emergency equipment, medicos, porters and a stretcher. Lohar was first rushed to the station’s Emergency Medical Room, where a doctor examined him and declared him dead. His body was later shifted to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Shatabdi Hospital in Kandivali for post-mortem and other legal formalities. Special Teams The brutal killing sent shockwaves across Mumbai’s suburban rail network. In the morning, Borivali GRP Senior Police Inspector Datta Khuperkar said seven special teams were formed and nearly 400 CCTV camera feeds were scrutinised to trace the suspect. The attacker was captured on multiple surveillance cameras, cool and casual, without a hint of remorse, walking out of Borivali station after the attack. Following an intensive 14-hour manhunt, he was tracked down and arrested at Panvel in Raigad. The Borivali GRP has registered a murder case and launched a detailed investigation. As news of the shocking crime spread amid Wednesday’s torrential rains, commuters expressed outrage and disbelief that a trivial dispute over closing a train door could culminate in such a savage killing. Pall of gloom in Virar Early Wednesday morning, the Lohar family of Virar was devastated on learning about the horrifying killing of their favourite child, Mayank in a train altercation. His parents, three brothers and a sister could barely speak, with his wailing mother demanding “he must be hanged”. Consoling each other, one sister lamented how he was a quiet boy, rarely stepped out of the house without any reason and had his entire life before him that was snuffed out. Venting their ire, they asked “where was the police, why the other commuters didn’t help him” and warned that today it was their son, “next it can be anybody’s son”. The massive dragnet Barely hours after the brutal killing of Mayank Lohar, the Borivali GRP launched one of the biggest manhunts to track and apprehend the suspected killer from Panvel in Raigad district. He was later identified as one Roshan Suvarna, 30, of Mira Road, running a barcode business, informed Borivali GRP Senior Police Inspector Datta Khuperkar. “We formed seven teams with around 10 police personnel supervised by 15 officers. They scanned footage from over 400 CCTVs to trace the regular movements of the accused. The GRP stations of Borivali, Andheri, Mira Road and Nalasopara were involved in the search. We deployed tech-intel to scour his mobile and with help of our network of informers, finally caught him in Panvel,” a weary but victorious Khuperkar told ‘The Perfect Voice’. He added that after completing the legal and medical formalities, he will be produced before a Borivali Court for remand.

The Natural Beauty of “I Don’t Know”

Rupak Bardhan Roy
Jun 17
4 min read

In an age of instant opinions and algorithmic certainty, intellectual honesty begins by admitting what we do not know.

William Beebe (1877–1962), an American naturalist and explorer, while emphasizing intellectual honesty and scientific temper wrote:

“These words should be ready for instant use … — ‘I don’t know.’”

Going beyond Anglo-references and coming back to our homegrown geniuses, so did Bengal-based chemist, entrepreneur, and literary genius Rajshekhar Basu (awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1956). In his 1951 essay, Mr Scientific Mechanical Brain (as his elder brother Shahi Shekhar used to call him), described “scientific temper” as:

“The attempt to determine truth in all matters with the same care and freedom from prejudice that a scientist exercises during research.”

And that, as per Beebe, starts by acknowledging, prima facie, what we do not have answers to, and the benefits of this mindset far outweigh its drawbacks, if any. After all, a solution to a problem starts by acknowledging that there is a problem. Lucky for us, our Constitution (Article 51A) also calls for its expansion. Scientific temper in India, according to our founding traditions, is the method of categorically applying a scientific and logical thought process to our everyday lives. It’s a mind-state! But have we been able to uphold our founding traditions? I doubt so!

“Know-It-All” Fallacy

Our reluctance towards scientific temper partially spans what I call the “know-it-all fallacy space”. We somehow have a strange inclination to blindly believe general acts of vague referencing without cross-checking. A glimpse into history shows that most established superstitions began in exactly this way.

If a ‘WhatsApp uncle’ (a professor at WhatsApp University) suggests a medicine and I blindly take it, neither of us truly knows whether I might suffer an allergic reaction or long-term side effects. According to pre-COVID data (2020), the rate of self-prescribed medication in India was already significantly high at 19 percent, and unsurprisingly, it rose to over 25 percent post-COVID. Among these, around 75 percent involve drugs like Vitamin C and azithromycin.

The second tendency involves people who do not rely on hearsay and instead turn to ChatGPT or Google. After all, why would we listen to random people when we have the internet? But the problem lies elsewhere.

When we search for something, we do so using only a handful of keywords based on our limited understanding. Worse still, search algorithms often present a few highlighted lines from selected websites, which many people accept as unquestionable truth. Even those who dig deeper often skim abstracts and results from academic articles without understanding the limitations of those studies.

We fail to realize that a scientific paper addresses only specific questions or experiments—it does not provide universal truths. Its conclusions depend on methodology, experimental conditions, and sometimes even bias. In scientific terms, these issues are called insufficient sample size and biased outcomes. Moreover, economic factors influence which search results appear first. Our exploration is rarely objective. So, absorbing and disseminating such ambiguity is at the heart of this problem.

This phenomenon reminds me of Postman’s famous experiment. Neil Postman, best known for his cultural criticism of technology’s expanding authority, used to casually offer colleagues fabricated “scientific findings” to observe whether they would challenge them. He noted that most would accept the claims without hesitation, provided they carried the faint scent of expertise or aligned with the ambient logic of modern life. From this, Postman argues that our basic habits of belief have not changed since the Middle Ages: then, people deferred to the authority of religion, and now they defer to the authority of technology. This continuity, he suggests, is what allows a culture—in which technological authority has eroded the very frameworks that once helped us distinguish the plausible from the merely persuasive—to degrade.

Ultimately, what emerges is this: our surrender to tech-referencing, or even our desire to momentarily establish ourselves within social circles - our know-it-all micro-ego - sways us from objectivity. We fear being perceived as ignorant. As a result, we give answers even when unsure or make generalizations without sufficient evidence. In doing so, we risk wasting time or even causing harm, both to ourselves and to others.

Imagine you asking me a question I have no answer to and I begin my answer by saying, “I don’t know.”

Building Trust

Firstly, even if you don’t get the answer you wanted, you will sense honesty. You will know that when I do know something, I will provide accurate information. This builds trust - a rare commodity in our society today. During my fourteen years in Europe, I have repeatedly seen how this openness helps strengthen social trust, both in personal and professional circles.

Secondly, saying “I don’t know” frees the responder from the burden of appearing intelligent. It removes the pressure of an imaginary standard of knowledge. From there begins the true journey of learning. The mind opens up - free to explore, question, and discover.

Moreover, when both the questioner and the responder acknowledge uncertainty, they ascend to a level playing field. The false guru-shishya bubble vanishes. This shared space of curiosity can even build friendship. In an increasingly alienated world, what could be more beautiful than two people searching for answers together?

So, let us say “I don’t know.” This “know-it-all” problem has far broader social consequences across our country. We are forgetting how to question. Those who seek to control us, regardless of ideology, fear questioning minds the most. Our ability to ask questions is our greatest strength.

The phrase “I don’t know” is the very foundation of curiosity and inquiry.

(The writer is a Lead Process Engineer with GE HealthCare in France and a columnist with four books to his credit. Views personal.)