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A Pokémon store worker was stabbed to death in Tokyo by a man who then turned the knife on himself.
The victim, who was in her 20s, was stabbed in the neck at 7.16pm local time in a busy shopping centre at the height of Japan’s children’s spring break season.
The male attacker was seen wielding knives in both hands, according to broadcaster TV Asahi. The motive remains unclear, according to local media reports.
The perpetrator reportedly pushed behind the counter and suddenly attacked the shop employee several times, including in the neck. A bloodstained knife was found in a cloth nearby, according to Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun.
Police on the scene after the young Pokémon store worker was stabbed to death (Kyodo News)
A witness told the outlet: “There was an incredible noise from behind the counter, so loud we thought something had fallen over. Immediately afterwards, a foreigner came running up shouting ‘Help!’”
“After that, three or four police officers carrying long-handled polearms went into the store, and we heard a man shouting ‘Ahhh!’”
Footage from the scene showed terrified shoppers and staff fleeing from the store in the Ikebukuro neighbourhood. One person could be seen slipping in the commotion as dozens streamed out of a shop and into the complex.
Both the attacker and the victim were in critical condition when they were taken to hospital and were later pronounced dead, police said. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said the male attacker, also in his twenties, died by self-inflicted wounds.
Police said the case is still under investigation and that they had no other details.
A Tokyo Fire Department’s van in front of the commercial complex on Thursday (Kyodo News)
A man in his 20s who works in a shop on the same floor told Mainichi Shimbun: “There were lots of families with children because it was spring break, and the kids were running away too. It was terrifying.”
The complex is situated just a few hundred metres from Ikebukuro terminal, one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations.
Japan has strict gun controls and acts of public violence are still relatively rare, though a spate of stabbing incidents have been reported on trains and at railway stations in recent years.
A 61-year-old man was arrested in Fukuoka in February after allegedly stabbing two men and a woman in a library. Investigators said the suspect stabbed a man in his 80s in the abdomen before attacking a security guard in his 70s and a 50-year-old woman.
All three were taken to medical institutions in the city in stable condition. Japanese media reported that the suspect did not know the victims.
Police last month also arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of murder following a stabbing attack in the busy Dotonbori district of Osaka City. Three 17-year-old boys were reportedly stabbed, and one succumbed to their wounds.
A spokesperson for The Pokemon Co, which operates around two dozen stores across Japan selling merchandise from the popular franchise, was not immediately available for comment.
AloJapan.com