Man dressed as Joker arrested after 17 injured in Tokyo train attack | Japan

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A man dressed as Batman’s Joker has been arrested for attempted murder after a knife-and-fire attack on a train in Tokyo, according to Japanese media, that left at least 17 people injured and another seriously injured after being stabbed.

Witnesses told national broadcaster NHK about the bloody attack on Sunday, when the Japanese capital was packed with Halloween revelers, many in military uniform.

Media reports said the offender, a 20-year-old wearing a green shirt and indigo suit, attacked people with a knife and set the train ablaze.

A video posted by NHK showed panicked passengers running on the train as smoke filled the carriage, with flames also visible. Another video posted on Twitter showed people climbing windows to escape a Q Line train at a station.

The line’s operator said services were partially suspended after an “incident involving injuries” occurred shortly before 8 p.m. near Kokuryu in the city’s western suburbs.

“At first I thought it was something like a Halloween event. But I ran away when a guy with a long knife came in. I was very lucky I didn’t get injured,” a man on the train told NHK.

One passenger said that the perpetrator showed no emotion during the attack.

“He picked up a knife and started sprinkling the liquid,” she said. “He was committing this act without showing any emotion, just mechanically. I think this frightened everyone.”

Rescue workers and police officers are working on the site of a knife attack, arson and acid attack on the train. Photo: Kyodo/Reuters

Kyodo News reported 15 people were injured in the attack, and NHK reported 17 people, and a man in his 60s was stabbed and stabbed in critical condition.

Dozens of firefighters and police officers were seen working outside the centre.

Violent crime is rare in Japan, but in August nine people, one of whom is in serious condition, were injured in a stabbing incident on a Tokyo commuter train, as the suspect was leaving the scene and later turning himself in.

In a separate attack in August, two people were burned in an acid attack at a Tokyo subway station.

Japan has strict laws on guns, but there are occasional violent crimes involving other weapons. In 2019, a man killed two people, one of whom was a schoolgirl, and injured more than a dozen in an attack targeting children while they were waiting for a bus.

In 2018, a man was arrested in central Japan after a person was stabbed to death and two others were injured on an express train.

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