It is reassuring to witness a real-life situation where all stakeholders played their part in responding positively to an emergency (Quick action, calm evacuation after alert over suspicious bag; April 3).

The police and SBS Transit staff should be commended for their collaborative effort in maintaining public calm while they went about their investigations.

Equally heartening was the cooperation and understanding of commuters, who took the incident in their stride as they were more concerned about safety than the personal inconvenience caused by the station's temporary closure.

There will be some who think the authorities overreacted.

But the lesson for all is that we should not take security for granted, and we should pay heed to the public announcements in MRT stations exhorting commuters not to leave personal belongings unattended.

It is better to be safe than sorry.

It is imperative that we remain alert at all times, and also pay more attention to reminders, such as reporting suspicious characters to the authorities involved.

Jeffrey Law Lee Beng