The attacker disguised as Joker, a character from the Batman series, apparently started a fire in one of the wagons with the help of flammable material, causing panic among the passengers. Many of them traveled in costumes, heading to popular Halloween celebrations.
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The older man stabbed by the attacker is unconscious and in critical condition. The condition of several other people is serious.
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One of the videos posted on Twitter shows crowds of people pushing out of the car, where a flame ignites a few seconds later. In another video, passengers pushed out the windows of the wagon to the platform where the train had stopped in an emergency.
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“I thought it was a Halloween joke. But then I saw a man approaching us and slowly waving a long knife, “said Jomiuri Shimbun, one of the eyewitnesses.
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The twenty-four-year-old attacker sat down in an empty car after the act and smoked a cigarette. Police detained him on the spot and charged him with attempted murder. According to local media, he told police that he “wanted to kill so that he could be sentenced to death.”
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The attack took place on a train on the Keio line, which connects the Shinjuku district with the suburbs in the western part of the metropolis. Police detained the 24-year-old man at the scene and charged him with attempted murder.
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Japan is known for its relatively low crime rate. After the turn of the millennium, however, it became the scene of a series of attacks committed with a knife or other stabbing or cutting weapons. In August of August this year, a 36-year-old man stabbed at least ten people on a suburban train in Tokyo, later telling investigators that he was targeting women who looked happy.
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