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TOKYO, JAPAN - A MAN was stabbed and seriously injured at a suburban office north of Tokyo on Wednesday, police said, in the latest in an almost daily series of such attacks that have unnerved the relatively crime-free country.
A 51-year-old unemployed man was arrested on the spot in Niiza, about 30 km north of Tokyo, a police spokesman said.
On Monday, a woman stabbed and hurt six people at a station in Hiratsuka, south-west of Tokyo, in what domestic media said was a random attack carried out out in rage after a failed suicide.
On Tuesday an 18-year-old man stabbed his former teacher at a school in central Japan, telling police he held a grudge against the man, domestic media said.
Last week a man killed a 22-year-old student and injured another person in a random knife attack at a book store in western Tokyo.
He told police he did it partly to get his name on television, domestic media said, in an echo of the worst of the recent spate of incidents.
Seven people were killed last month when a disgruntled factory worker went on a rampage in the popular shopping district of Akihabara in Tokyo, running some of his victims down with a truck and stabbing others.
That prompted the government to announce a clampdown on the possession of double-edged knives and to urge police to step up their presence in crowded shopping areas.
The attacks, and Internet threats of further stabbings, have continued, prompting Japan's top government spokesman to say knife crimes seemed to spread via media reports.
'I'm distressed these incidents are taking place one after another', Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a group of reporters earlier this week.
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