An enraged vendor went on a stabbing rampage at a festival in central Japan, killing one man and wounding six others attending late night celebrations to welcome the onset of fall, police said yesterday.
The suspect, Toshiaki Arai, said he was angry that customers had made fun of him, according to a police statement taken after his arrest at Kuwashima Jinja, a shrine in Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture.
Witnessese told police Arai drove a car into the crowd of celebrants at the shrine late on Saturday night, jumped out and began indiscriminately slashing people with a curved sickle, normally used to cut grass, the statement said.
One of the victims, Yohei Okada, 30, died from severe blood loss, police said. Among the six men injured, two remained hospitalized yesterday afternoon.
The incident is the latest of several stabbing sprees that have made headlines in Japan over the past few months.
Seven people were killed in Tokyo’s Akihabara shopping district on June 8 when a man slammed a truck head on into a crowd of people, jumped out and began stabbing passers-by at random.
On July 23, police arrested a man for allegedly stabbing a woman to death and wounding another at a crowded Tokyo bookstore.
Less than a week later, a knife-wielding Japanese woman wounded seven men at a crowded train station 70km southwest of Tokyo after failing to slash her own wrist.
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