Recently, an elderly lady, afraid of elevators and escalators, asked a person who was cleaning the floors whether there was a staircase in the mall. The fellow showed her a staircase, and the lady entered the staircase through the door on the first floor. She went up to the second floor and found the doors were all locked from outside. She also noticed that it was apparently a service-staircase for maintenance of electrical connections and equipment. She went down to the first floor, and again found all the exit doors were locked. The lady panicked because it was lonely and no one else was present. Somehow she went down to the first ground floor and came out.
The Mall had no business keeping open the ground floor entrance to the service staircase open. It could lead to more incidents like this. The lady could have been robbed or murdered. The open service staircase is also an open invitation to miscreants and even terrorists.