Police arrest a student suspected of a hammer attack at a Tokyo university

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police have arrested a student suspected of carrying out a hammer attack at a Tokyo university that left several people injured, according to local media.

According to Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the 22-year-old South Korean sociology student was immediately arrested for allegedly attacking a male student, causing minor injuries, during class at Hosei University’s Tama campus in a western suburb of Tokyo on Friday.

Japanese media reported that seven other students suffered minor injuries when the suspect allegedly beat them one by one. It was not clear whether her actions were intentional.

Kyodo News Agency reported the suspect told investigators she was “frustrated” after being ignored and bullied by her classmates and using a hammer she found on campus.

Nearly 150 students were in class that day, and one told Kyodo that the attacker seemed to swing the hammer randomly, hitting those sitting in the back row of the classroom and causing everyone to run away. Another said her face was expressionless and she didn’t appear to be targeting anyone in particular, the agency said.

Police said the investigation was ongoing without providing further details.

Due to the bitter past between the two countries, stemming from Japan’s brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula, which ended with Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, Koreans in Japan still sometimes face discrimination.

However, serious crime is rare in Japan random stabbing and shooting have occurred in recent years.

In December, a middle school student was stabbed and her friend was injured while waiting in line at a McDonald’s restaurant in the southwestern city of Kitakyushu in an alleged random attack in which a man was later arrested.

In 2022 there were three people, including two students on the way to entrance exams stabbed to death in front of the University of Tokyo. A 17-year-old student was arrested and later convicted of attempted murder.