TWO days ago, I met two Malaysian ladies who have had the misfortune of having their wallets stolen after their bags were slashed. With a knife.
They were lucky that the rogue criminals just got away with their cash and a passport. It could have been worse, which could add to the worrying rising statistics of knife victims in London.
Knife carrying muggers and criminals are on the increase, with stories of stabbed victims on London streets hitting the headlines almost every day now.
The escalating knife crime epidemic that has so far claimed 24 lives this year; beginning from the early morning of 2019 to the latest victim a few days ago.
A young refugee was stabbed to death by two men who then ran into the Regent’s Mosque in London to wash and change their clothes among people preparing to pray.
Last year there were over 130 victims of knife crime.
Three days ago, six stabbings in six hours all involved teens, the victims and perpetrators were from unrelated cases in different parts of London.
Many victims were left critically injured in these attacks. While gang wars or vengeance couldn’t be ruled out, most of the time robbery and muggings are definitely the motives of these criminals who stole as little as “a few pounds”, such as in the case of an Asian newsagent who was pounced on when he was opening his shop early last Monday.
What is worrying is the fact that the knife culture is rife among the youth; teenagers in schools perpetrating crimes from outside the school gates and spilling into the playgrounds.
A hospital in west London reported that people coming in with knife-related injuries were getting younger, with the trauma unit seeing about one young victim of a knife attack each day.
There was a time when you read cases of knife crimes among school-going children and you thought you are reading about cases that happened in the United States of America.
A major summit in Downing Street on April 1 is aimed at tackling the problem.
The concern has also led to the Metropolitan police planning to increase the number of officers on guard full-time at schools in London.
At the moment there were 420 police officers with full-time roles in schools in the capital.
However, there is concern about how young people especially in schools, are perceiving policemen, with many associating them with stop-and-search routine instead of viewing them as “friends”.
Some of the victims of the horrendous attacks were found to have met their perpetrators early in the mornings after a night out. However, tragedy can happen anywhere, anytime.
So, how does one defend oneself in cases like these?
A conservative member of the British parliament has suggested that young people learn martial arts to help them deal with violent situations although his suggestion was countered by a Metropolitan police who advised that “running away” was the best technique.
My own son was a victim of several attacks, in school as well as outside, when a boy not much older than him relieved him of his new mobile phone.
Not trying to be a hero, he surrendered his precious phone that he bought with his own savings when the boy threatened him with a knife.
Such an incident prompted him to take up self-defence and now, after spending a few months in Malaysia to learn “silat gayong”, he has become an instructor of the traditional Malay martial art.
I guess, it is not a bad thing to know how to react in such circumstances, although, God forbid, I would agree with the police who suggested that people run away from such dangerous situation.
While writing this, my attention was turned to another incident where a man in his 40s was stabbed to death through his car window by a group of thugs who ran away laughing. This happened after a 19-year-old was stabbed in central London, leaving him with non life-threatening injuries.
While Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a possible bloodbath over the Brexit debate, one wonders whether the major summit to tackle knife crime as called by the prime minister would happen at all.
The prime minister had said that the gathering of experts and community leaders at Downing Street on April 1 was to explore ways to tackle the problem, while addressing claims that it was high time the government dealt with such serious violence.
We certainly do not want to come to a stage where days spent without violence are regarded as a “luxury”, just like in New York last year when the people celebrated their first weekend without a murder or shooting in decades.
Without any serious actions put in place, it might just come to that in London.