Police are searching for a man who attacked a female passenger and stabbed a tray table with a knife on a northbound Taiwan High Speed Rail train yesterday.
The incident did not affect train operations, and the case has been reported to the police, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp said.
The Railway Police Bureau said it was notified at 11:43am that a conflict began when the train stopped at Miaoli Station. A female passenger, surnamed Liu (劉), tried to enter carriage No. 10 but found a man sitting on the floor, blocking the entrance.
Photo copied by Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
Liu stepped over the man to enter the carriage, prompting him to yell and punch her, leaving her cheek swollen.
The man later vented his anger at Liu again while the train was traveling between Banciao Station in New Taipei City and Taipei.
Although other passengers attempted to calm him by offering him a seat, he eventually lost his temper, pulling a knife about 30 centimeters long from his backpack and stabbing it into a tray table. He then left the knife on the train and fled when it arrived at Taipei Station.
A male passenger who witnessed parts of the incident wrote in an Instagram story: “[I] almost died on the High Speed Rail train.”
“This woman likely had a fight with that guy (didn’t record that). The guy attempted to stab her with a knife,” he wrote in another story.
“They were in the front of the carriage and I was in the middle of it. Suddenly, someone shouted there was a knife, and then everyone ran toward the exit,” he added.
The police are still trying to identify the man and are reviewing CCTV footage to track his movements. They are considering treating the case as an offense of endangering public safety under the Criminal Code, they said.
Personnel from the Railway Police Bureau’s Taipei branch inspected the scene and confiscated the knife as evidence. It will be sent to the Taipei City Police Department to determine if the suspect violated the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例).
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