Police rule out terrorism in stabbing attack on UK train after 2 men are arrested

British police dismissed speculation on Sunday that a mass stabbing attack on a London-bound train the previous evening was terrorist-related and said two people who were injured in the incident remain in life-threatening condition. Police also said two men, born in the United Kingdom, remain in custody. They were arrested eight minutes after the first emergency calls were made from aboard the train, where passengers had reported scenes of panic and chaos with many running through the carriages and some seeking safety in the toilets. “This is a shocking incident and my thoughts are with those who have been injured and their families,” British Transport Police Superintendent John Loveless said outside the station in Huntingdon in eastern England where the train halted soon after the attack. “There is nothing to suggest this is a terrorist incident,” he added. The two arrested remain in custody, he said and added that one is a 32-year-old black British man, the other is a 35-year-old man of Caribbean descent. The relationship of the two suspects was not revealed, nor was the type of knife, or knives, used. Loveless also gave an update on those injured in the attack, reducing the number in life-threatening condition from nine to two. He said four of the injured have now been discharged and that one other person had arrived at the hospital, taking the overall number injured in the attack to 11. On Saturday night, bloodied passengers had spilled out of the long-distance train when it made an emergency stop in the town of Huntingdon, a market town around 120km (75 miles) north of London. Dozens of police were waiting, some of them armed, and the two suspects were arrested within eight minutes of the first calls to emergency services, Loveless said. During the immediate response to the attack, the police force said that “Plato”, the national code word used by police and emergency services when responding to what could be a “marauding terror attack”, was initiated. That declaration was later rescinded but no motive for the attack has been disclosed. “At this early stage it would not be appropriate to speculate on the causes of the incident,” Loveless said. The attack took place as the train from Doncaster in northern England to London’s King’s Cross station was about halfway through its two-hour journey and approaching Huntingdon. Passenger Olly Foster told the BBC he heard people shouting “run, run, there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone”, and initially thought it might have been a Halloween prank. But as passengers pushed past him to get away, he noticed his hand was covered in blood from a chair he had leaned on. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his “thoughts are with all those affected” after the “appalling incident”. King Charles said he and his wife, Queen Camilla, sent their sympathies and thoughts to those affected and that they were “truly appalled and shocked to hear of the dreadful knife attack”. London North Eastern Railway (LNER), which operates the East Coast Mainline services in the UK, confirmed the incident had happened on one of its trains and said there would be major disruption on the route until Monday. British Transport Police’s Loveless said passengers will see a “high visibility presence of police officers at stations and on trains” on Sunday. 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 with nearly 60,000 blades either “seized or surrendered” in England and Wales as part of government efforts to halve knife crime within a decade, the interior ministry said on Wednesday. Carrying a knife in public can be punishable by up to four years in prison, and the government said knife murders had dropped by 18 per cent 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. A man appeared in a London court on Thursday charged with murder after a stabbing attack in broad daylight which left one dead and two injured. Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Police rule out terrorism in stabbing attack on UK train after 2 men are arrested

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The suspects were arrested at Huntingdon station near Cambridge. Eleven people were injured in the attack, 2 remain in critical condition

The suspects were arrested at Huntingdon station near Cambridge. Eleven people were injured in the attack, 2 remain in critical condition