A 24-year-old man attacked passengers with a knife on a train in Tokyo on Sunday. Seventeen people were injured, one of whom is in critical condition.
The suspect would have been dressed as ‘The Joker’ from the Batman films.
The knife attack took place around 8 p.m. local time when the train stopped at Kokuryo station in the Japanese capital. The perpetrator also tried to set fire to the train. Instead, he poured a liquid through the train. Online photos and videos show that the train set then caught fire, and people climbed out of the windows in panic.
Images appeared on social media of panicking passengers trying to get away as quickly as they could. “I thought it was a Halloween stunt,” one of them wrote. “But then I saw that man with a bloody knife.” The suspect later told police that it was lighter fluid.
The suspect did not resist his arrest. He also stated that he wanted to “kill people” and hoped “to get the death penalty after that”. According to the Japanese news agency Kyodo, the man would have stated to the police that he is a fan of the character “The Joker” from the Batman films.
Violent crimes are rare in Japan. Still, the country has been rocked several times by knife attacks resulting in random casualties in recent years. In August, nine people were injured when a man attacked travellers on a train in Tokyo. In June 2008, a man drove a truck into a crowd in Tokyo, jumped from the vehicle and began stabbing at pedestrians. Seven people were killed.
