UK police arrested two suspects after a mass stabbing on a London-bound train late Saturday that left 10 people in hospital, nine likely with “life-threatening injuries”.
Armed police, backed by police cars and a fleet of ambulances, swarmed a railway station in the eastern rural town of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, after the alarm was raised about the attack and the train brought to a halt there.
“Ten people have been taken to hospital following a multiple stabbing on a train in Cambridgeshire. Nine are believed to have suffered life-threatening injuries,” British Transport Police said on X, adding that counter-terrorism units were supporting the investigation.
Transport police confirmed the train was running from Doncaster in the northeast to London’s King’s Cross Station, a busy route often packed with travellers.
A witness described seeing a man with a large knife and told the Times newspaper there was “blood everywhere” as people hid in the washrooms.
Some passengers were getting “stamped [on] by others” as they tried to run, and the witness told The Times they “heard some people shouting we love [you]”.
Witnesses told Sky News they saw a man holding a large knife on the platform after the train halted. They then saw the man tasered and restrained by police.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the “appalling” incident was “deeply concerning”.
“My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response,” Starmer said in a statement on X.
“Anyone in the area should follow the advice of the police,” Starmer added, while his Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood confirmed two people had been taken into custody.
Armed police were at the scene after being alerted around 7:40pm (1940 GMT).
Late Saturday, police were inspecting the train, which was being treated as a crime scene. People were also led away outside the station in space blankets, an AFP photographer saw.
Local ambulance services mobilised a “large-scale response” to the station including ambulances, air ambulances and tactical commanders.
“We can confirm we have transported multiple patients to hospital,” the East of England Ambulance Service said on X.
Train operator London North Eastern Railway (LNER) said railway lines were closed while emergency services dealt with the incident at Huntingdon station.
LNER, which runs trains along the east of England and Scotland, urged passengers not to travel, warning of “major disruption”.
It serves major stops including in London, Peterborough, Cambridge, York and Edinburgh.
The mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Paul Bristow, said in a post on X: “Hearing reports of horrendous scenes on a train in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire”, adding that his “thoughts are with everyone affected”.
The identity of the two arrested were not immediately known.
Knife crime in England and Wales has been steadily rising since 2011, according to official government data.
While Britain has some of the strictest gun controls in the world, rampant knife crime has been branded a “national crisis” by Starmer.
His Labour government has tried to rein in their use.
Nearly 60,000 blades have been either “seized or surrendered” in England and Wales as part of government efforts to halve knife crime within a decade, the interior ministry said Wednesday.
Carrying a knife in public can be punishable by up to four years in prison, and the government said knife murders had dropped by 18 percent in the last year.
Two people were killed - one as a result of misdirected police gunfire - and others wounded in a stabbing spree at a synagogue in Manchester at the start of October in an attack which shook the local Jewish community and the country.
And a man appeared in a London court on Thursday charged with murder after a stabbing attack in broad daylight which left one dead and two injured.
- Agence France-Presse