The Tokyo Metro’s Namboku line was suspended after the incident, according to public broadcaster NHK and other local media outlets.

Police were not able to immediately confirm the incident when contacted by AFP.

NHK said several people had been injured, although the severity of their wounds was not immediately clear.

The reports, citing police, said officers were alerted at around 7 pm (1000 GMT) that a knife-wielding man had been seen at Todai-mae Station in central Tokyo.

Violent crime is relatively rare in Japan, which has a low murder rate and some of the world’s toughest gun laws.

But there are occasional stabbings and even shootings, including the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2022.

A 24-year-old man allegedly stabbed a passenger and started a fire on a train in Tokyo on Halloween in 2021 while wearing an outfit resembling comic book villain the Joker.

The assailant reportedly said he had used a stabbing attack on a commuter train in Tokyo that same year as a reference. Nine people were wounded, one of them seriously, in that previous attack.

Japan remains shaken by the memory of a major subway attack in 1995 when members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin gas on trains, killing 14 people.

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© Agence France-Presse