TOKYO: Japanese police yesterday arrested a man who allegedly stabbed five people at a railway station in southwest Japan, Kyodo news agency reported.
The five victims — all men — were taken to hospital but their injuries did not seem to be life-threatening, the agency said, quoting firefighters.
A passerby alerted the fire department to the early morning attack at Hakata railway station in Fukuoka city.
Police said they had arrested a man believed to be the attacker, who was quoted as saying he “wanted to stab people”, Kyodo reported.
Japan, which has a low violent crime rate, was shocked in 2008 at a massacre in Tokyo by a knife wielding assailant which left seven dead.
Tomohiro Kato, 29, was sentenced to death for the lunchtime attack in the bustling Akihabara district in which he ploughed a truck into a crowd of shoppers before stabbing passersby in a rampage.— AFP