2 students injured in knife assault in Sendai

Jiji Press

16:48 JST, July 7, 2022

SENDAI (Jiji Press) — Two junior high school students were injured in a knife assault in the city of Sendai on Thursday morning, according to local police.

At around 8 a.m., police received an emergency call saying that junior high school students appeared to have been stabbed on a street in Sendai.

The two female students were both slashed in the back on their way to school and taken to a hospital. One of them was seriously injured, while the other sustained minor injuries. Their injuries were not life-threatening, according to the Miyagi prefectural police.

The police arrested the attacker, Hiroyuki Owari, 43, who fled to his home located nearby after the incident, on suspicion of attempted murder.

Owari admitted stabbing the girls with a kitchen knife and said that he intended to kill them, police sources said.

The incident occurred in a residential area some 3 kilometers southwest of East Japan Railway Co.’s Sendai Station.

“I was wondering what the commotion was about, as I saw a police car when I was passing by the area before 10 a.m.,” Mitsuo Takeda, 83, who lives nearby, said.

“I never thought that there would be an incident involving children around this residential area,” Takeda said, adding, “The only thing schools and students are wary of has been traffic accidents.”

Following the incident, Sendai’s board of education sent two counselors to the two students’ school to offer emotional support to students there.