British police have ruled out terrorism after Saturday’s mass stabbing on a train in central England, with two people still in hospital in life-threatening conditions.
Two men were arrested in connection with the attack, 10 people were taken to hospital by ambulance, and another person surrendered that night. British Transport Police Superintendent John Loveless told reporters that as of Sunday morning, both victims remained in fear for their lives.
“At this stage, there is nothing to suggest this is a terrorist incident,” Loveless said in a press statement. “At this stage, it is not appropriate to speculate on the cause of this incident,” he said, adding that officers were working to determine the full motive.
Lovelace said one of the suspects is a 32-year-old black British man and the other is a 35-year-old British man of Caribbean descent. It added that both suspects were born in the UK.
The two suspects were arrested within eight minutes of police receiving the first emergency call at around 7:42pm local time on Saturday evening.
In what British Defense Secretary John Healy described as an “isolated attack” in an interview on Sky News, officers responded to an emergency call as the train was en route from the northern city of Doncaster to King’s Cross in London.
Armed police were called to Huntingdon station, but the train made an unplanned stop and the two were arrested.
Witnesses described chaotic scenes of the attack, with train seats covered in blood. Passenger Wren Chambers told the BBC that she initially heard “shouts and screams” coming from one or two vehicles as they exited.
“About a minute later, a man… came running in with very obvious injuries and bleeding pretty badly from his arm. And at first I thought it was some kind of Halloween prank, but then he was screaming that someone had a knife and that he had been stabbed,” she said.
Chambers grabbed her bag and coat as she saw more people running from the train. “I got up and followed them to the front of the train, trying to get them as far away from the train as possible.”
Another witness who was on the train said he saw the victim “extremely bloody.” The man, who gave his name as Gavin, told Sky News he believed he saw the suspect being shot with a Taser before being arrested.
Britain’s King Charles offered his “deepest sympathies” to those affected by the attack in a statement on Sunday. He said he was “truly appalled and shocked to hear of the horrific knife attack” in Huntingdon and expressed his “deepest sympathy and thoughts” to those affected.
The East Coast Main Line is one of the UK’s busiest and most important railway lines. It connects major cities from King’s Cross in London to Edinburgh Waverley in Scotland.
