Nine people were injured on Friday August 6 in a knife attack on a commuter train in Tokyo, and a suspect was arrested shortly after the incident after fleeing and then surrendering, admitting to being the perpetrator of the incident. assault, according to local media.
Violent acts of this kind are very rare in Japan, and this attack comes as the country's capital is on high alert, as the host city of the Olympic Games.
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The assault took place in the evening on a commuter train in Setagaya, a district in western Tokyo.
A woman in her twenties was seriously injured, according to the public broadcaster NHK citing the emergency services.
The place where the assault was committed is located a few kilometers from the Olympic site of the equestrian competitions.
The train company concerned, Odakyu Electric Railway, announced on its website that it had suspended part of its service due to an "
attack in a train
", without giving further details.
The train was directed to an emergency stop.
The 20-something suspect
The suspect, a young man in his 20s, was arrested by police after going to a shopkeeper and telling the manager that he was the perpetrator, media reports. . According to the Kyodo news agency, the perpetrator left his knife and a phone on board the train. Asked by AFP, the local police and the emergency services declined to comment on this case immediately.
Japanese gun laws are very strict, but occasional crimes have been committed with other guns. In 2019, a man killed two people, including a schoolgirl, and injured more than ten people in an outbreak of violence that targeted children waiting for a bus. In 2018, a man was arrested in central Japan after stabbing one person to death and injuring two others on a train.
