Three people were injured on a rapid train to Kansai airport in Osaka Prefecture when a 37-year-old man, Kazuya Shimizu, allegedly attacked them with knives, according to the police.
Shimizu was subsequently arrested on suspicion of attempted murder at a station adjacent to the airport. An officer drew his handgun and warned the suspect to drop the weapons before making the arrest. At the time of his apprehension, Shimizu was found to be in possession of three knives.
According to Shimizu’s statement to the police, he had an altercation with a man on the train, but he claimed no prior acquaintance with the three injured individuals. The incident occurred at the Rinku-Town Station in Izumisano, where the suspect targeted a 23-year-old man in the same train car, slashing his neck and temple at approximately 10:25 a.m. Shimizu admitted to the allegation, according to the police.
During the altercation, it is believed that another passenger’s hands were cut, and the train conductor was injured while attempting to intervene. The train had approximately 150 people on board at the time, and the incident led to temporary service suspension, affecting around 8,000 passengers, as stated by West Japan Railway Co., the operator of the line.
A 58-year-old witness, who was on the train, reported that two panicked foreign passengers ran in from the next car, alerting others in broken Japanese that someone had been stabbed. A video shared on Twitter showed a police officer pointing a pistol at the suspected perpetrator, who was wearing a face mask and holding a knife in each hand while making threatening gestures towards the surrounding officers.
