HUNTINGDON, United Kingdom: UK police said they had arrested two suspects Saturday as “a number of people” were taken to hospital and a “large-scale” emergency response was mobilized after a stabbing on a train in Cambridgeshire, eastern England.
“We are currently responding to an incident on a train to Huntingdon where multiple people have been stabbed,” British Transport Police said on X, adding that “two people have been arrested.”
Cambridgeshire police said: “A number of people have been taken to hospital.”
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).”
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.
‘Multiple patients’
Armed police were at the scene after being alerted around 7:40 p.m. local time (1940 GMT) and the train was stopped at Huntingdon, a market town in east England, police said.
Dozens of emergency vehicles were deployed at the station, and people were being led away in space blankets, an AFP photographer saw.
Local ambulance services mobilized 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 all its railway lines had been 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, and trains are often very busy, and packed with travelers.
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.”
Knife crime
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 already get you 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.
