Man dressed as Joker injures 17 on Tokyo train

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Rescue workers and police officers work at the site of a knife, arson and acid attack incident on a train, at the Kokuryo station of the Keio Line train in Tokyo, Japan, on October 31, 2021 in this photo taken by Kyodo.
Rescue workers and police officers work at the site of a knife, arson and acid attack incident on a train, at the Kokuryo station of the Keio Line train in Tokyo, Japan, on October 31, 2021 in this photo taken by Kyodo. Kyodo photo /via REUTERS

TOKYO – A 24-year-old man dressed in the Batman Joker costume attacked passengers on a Tokyo train line on Sunday night, injuring 17 people as many partygoers headed downtown to Halloween gatherings, the media reported.

Police arrested the alleged attacker at the scene, media reported. A man believed to be in his 60s was unconscious and in critical condition after being stabbed, while witnesses also said the attacker had spilled liquid across the train and started a fire, according to media.

A video uploaded to Twitter showed a constant stream of people fleeing a train car where, seconds later, a fire started. Another video showed passengers running out of the train’s windows and onto the platform where the train had made an emergency stop.

“I thought it was a Halloween trick,” a witness told the Yomiuri newspaper, recalling the moment when he saw other passengers running in panic towards their train car. “Then, I saw a man walking like this, slowly waving a long knife.” There was blood on the knife, he said.

This aerial image shows firefighters and rescuers gathered in front of Kokuryo Station on the Keio Line in the western Tokyo city of Chofu on October 31, 2021, after a man injured at least 10 people with a knife and a fire attack on a train.
This aerial image shows firefighters and rescuers gathered in front of Kokuryo Station on the Keio Line in the western Tokyo city of Chofu on October 31, 2021, after a man injured at least 10 people with a knife and a fire attack on a train. Photo by STR / JIJI PRESS /AFP via Getty Images

Another video on Twitter showed a bespectacled man dressed in a purple suit and bright green shirt, like the one the Joker wore, sitting on an empty train smoking a cigarette, legs crossed and looking calm. He can be seen through the window surrounded by police in a later clip.

We apologize, but this video could not be loaded.

Local media later reported that the suspect told authorities that he “wanted to kill people so that he could be sentenced to death.”

The attack occurred on the Keio express line bound for Shinjuku, the world’s busiest train station, around 8 pm (1100 GMT), the media said.

Partial service on the Keio line remained suspended late on Sunday, when Japanese voters went to the polls in the lower house elections.

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Reference-torontosun.com

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