3 knifed outside Tokyo Uni before exams, 17-yr-old arrested
>>TOKYO: Two high school students and a 72-year-old man were wounded in a knife attack yesterday just outside the University of Tokyo ahead of nationwide entrance exams and a teenager has been arrested, police said.
The man from Tokyo was seriously injured after he and the two students, aged 18 and 17, were slashed in the back around 8.30am (local time) outside one of the gates to the university’s main campus in the capital’s Bunkyo Ward, according to the police.
The two high school students, both from Chiba Prefecture, did not sustain life-threatening injuries, the police said, adding the 17-year-old suspect was not acquainted with the three.
The suspect, a student at a private high school residing in Nagoya in central Japan who was not taking the exams, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder. He has admitted to the charge.
“I was not doing well in my studies so I wanted to cause an incident and die,” he was quoted by police as saying.
The suspect also said he had brought a knife from his home. A bloodstained knife was found at the scene.
The incident occurred as Japan’s twoday unified university entrance exams began nationwide. Despite the incident, the University of Tokyo, which was one of over 600 exam venues, conducted the first day of the exams as scheduled.
The 72-year-old man alerted police to the attack after rushing to a nearby police box, the police said.
The suspect was also quoted by police as saying he started a fire at a station near the campus before the incident.
The Tokyo Fire Department said it was alerted to a fire within the premises of Todaimae Station on the Namboku Line operated by Tokyo Metro Co at around 8.30am and that it was extinguished around an hour later.
The incident appeared to unsettle some test-takers at the venue, to which police and firefighting vehicles were mobilised.
The incident occurred outside the gate of the Yayoi section of the main campus of the university, which is considered one of the most prestigious in Japan.
An 18-year-old test-taker said he learned about the incident via Twitter. “It has become a big incident and it’s scary. I want to do my best in the test and not be affected,” he added.
Another test-taker expressed her anxiety at a time when people are already feeling jittery about the coronavirus.
The exams drew a total of 530,367 applicants.