RAILWAY CRIME:
The male suspect stabbed a tray table on a northbound high-speed train with a 30cm long knife after screaming and attacking a female passenger.

Police are searching for a man who attacked a female passenger and stabbed a table with a knife on a northbound high-speed train from Taiwan yesterday.

The incident did not affect train operations and the matter has been reported to the police, Taiwan High Speed ​​Rail Corp said.

The Railway Police Bureau said it was notified at 11:43 a.m. that a conflict had started when the train stopped at Miaoli station. A female passenger, named Liu (劉), tried to enter carriage no. 10, but found a man sitting on the floor, blocking the entrance.

Photo copied by Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times

Liu stepped over the man to get into the carriage, causing him to scream and hit her, leaving her cheek swollen.

The man later expressed his anger at Liu again as the train traveled between New Taipei City’s Banciao Station and Taipei.

Although other passengers tried to appease him by offering him a seat, he eventually lost his temper, pulling a knife about 12 inches long from his backpack and stabbing it into a table. He then left the knife on the train and fled when it reached Taipei Station.

A male passenger who witnessed parts of the incident wrote in an Instagram story: “(I) almost died on the high-speed train.”

“This woman probably had an argument with that guy (didn’t record it). The guy tried to stab her with a knife,” he wrote in another story.

“They were in front of the carriage and I was in the middle of it. Suddenly someone shouted that there was a knife, and then everyone ran for the exit,” he added.

Police are still trying to identify the man and are examining CCTV footage to trace his movements. They are considering treating the case as a crime of endangering public safety under the Penal Code, they said.

Personnel from the Taipei branch of the Railway Police Bureau inspected the scene and confiscated the knife as evidence. It will be sent to the Taipei City Police Department to determine whether the suspect violated the Law on the Control of Weapons, Ammunition and Knives (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例).