The young woman, aged 22, is alleged to have told police that she carried out the attack at the university after she became frustrated when other students ignored her
A young woman allegedly went on a hammer rampage at a Tokyo university, leaving eight people injured.
The woman, believed to be 22, was apprehended after wounding several people at Hosei University in western Tokyo at about 4pm local time. The attack took place at the university’s Tama campus.
Police said the eight students who had been injured had been struck in the head or body. The force added that the injuries the victims had were not life threatening.
According to Japanese network NHK, the woman belonged to the Faculty of Social Sciences. She also is alleged to have told police that she became frustrated when other students ignored her.
She is then alleged to have carried out the attack with a hammer that she found on campus grounds. Footage seen on NHK showed numerous emergency vehicles outside the campus with other images showing a police cordon was placed around the site.
Hosei University is a private research college that is estimated to have some 28,000 undergraduates and 2,007 postgrads. While Japan has relatively low instances of violent public incidents, those that have occurred went on to gain international attention.
In 2022, former prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in a highly publicised attack. The attacker shot the politician with a homemade gun.
In January that year, three people were stabbed outside the University of Tokyo just before college entrance exams. The victims included an 18-year-old boy, a girl aged 17 and a 72-year-old man.
In December last year, a high school student was stabbed to death and another was wounded at a McDonald’s restaurant in the city of Kitakyushu of southwestern Japan. Police later arrested a man over the stabbings.
It was reported at the time that the high school students had been ready to order at the restaurant when the knifeman entered and carried out the attack.
