A man dressed in a Joker costume attacked passengers on a train with a knife and started a fire inside one of the carriages in Tokyo, Japan on Sunday, The Guardian reported. A video of the passengers frantically running to safety inside the train was widely circulated on social media.
Seventeen people were injured in the attack, BBC reported. “I thought it was a Halloween stunt,” a witness was quoted as saying.
The man, identified as 24-year-old Kyota Hattori, was later arrested by the police. He was seen wearing a purple and green suit – the colours that Batman’s archenemy Joker is often seen in.
A 70-year-old man was critically injured after being stabbed, Kyodo News reported. According to the investigators, the accused wanted to “kill people and be given the death penalty”, the report added. Hattori used lighter fluid to start the fire inside the train that was on its way to Shinjuku from Hachioji in Tokyo. Shinjuku is the world’s busiest railway station.
“Train doors were closed and we had no idea what was happening, and we jumped from the windows,” an eyewitness who filmed videos of the incident reportedly said.
The incident resembles a scene from the 2019-movie Joker where the lead character was played by actor Joaquin Phoenix, the BBC report added. In the movie, the character also attacks people on a train.
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