A man was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder in Tokyo on Wednesday after an alleged knife attack on a subway train, leaving two people injured.
The incident, which was reported at about 6:50 p.m., occurred at Todaimae Station on Tokyo Metro’s Namboku Line in Bunkyo Ward, according to the police. The line was suspended in both directions after the attack.
According to investigative sources, the incident occurred on a stationary train at the station, when a man brandished what appeared to be a kitchen knife and stabbed two men. A man in his 20s was hospitalized with a cut to his head, while a man in his 30s, believed to be a foreign national, suffered injuries to his hand. Both were said to be conscious.
Other passengers subdued the man and took the knife, according to the police.
Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world’s toughest gun laws. But there are occasional stabbings and even shootings, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.
A 24-year-old man allegedly stabbed a passenger and started a fire on a train in Tokyo on Halloween in 2021 while wearing an outfit resembling comic book villain the Joker. The assailant reportedly said he had used a stabbing attack on a commuter train in Tokyo that same year as a reference. Nine people were wounded, one of them seriously, in that previous attack.
Japan remains shaken by the memory of a major subway attack in 1995, when members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin gas on trains, killing 14 people.
