Car rams pedestrians in Melbourne

19 injured after vehicle mounts downtown curb in “deliberate act”

A man who intentionally drove a car into a crowded intersection in the heart of Australia’s second biggest city on Thursday has mental health issues but no known terrorism links, police said.

The 32-year-old Australian man of Afghan descent was known to police and also has a history of drug use, Victoria state Police Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said.

“At this time we do not have any evidence or intelligence to indicate a connection with terrorism,” Patton told reporters in Melbourne.

In what police said was a “deliberate act,” the incident left at least 19 people injured, some of them seriously.

Witnesses said people were thrown through the air after being hit by the vehicle, which did not appear to be trying to stop as it plowed into pedestrians.

Victoria state police said they had arrested two men, including the driver of a car that “collided with a number of pedestrians” at a busy intersection in downtown Melbourne.

“We believe based on what we have seen that it is a deliberate act. The motivations are unknown,” Victoria Police’s Commander Russell Barrett told reporters.

Barrett would not comment on whether the incident was terror-related, only saying “it is the early days of the investigation and that is unknown.”

Paramedics had taken a number of people to hospital, some with serious injuries, ambulance officials said.

Sky News Australia reported the injured included a pre-school child with a grave head injury.

Photographs from the scene showed one man wearing a long-sleeved top being dragged from a white Suzuki Grand Vitara, while a bearded second man wearing a red checked shirt was seen handcuffed and sitting on the ground.

In a tweet, police appealed to the public to upload any images they might have of the incident to help assist with the investigation.

A witness, named only as Sue, told Melbourne radio station 3AW that she heard screams and saw “people flying everywhere.”

“We could hear this noise, as we looked left, we saw this white car, it just mowed everybody down,” she said.

“People are flying everywhere. We heard thump, thump. People are running everywhere.”

The intersection is one of Melbourne’s busiest, a local shop owner told national broadcaster ABC, and is particularly crowded at this time of the year ahead of the Christmas break, with school holidays underway.

The incident comes after a car mowed down pedestrians in Melbourne’s busiest mall in January, killing six people.

Canberra has increasingly feared homegrown extremism and officials say they have prevented 13 local terror attacks over the past few years.