At least four people were injured this Saturday after a man stabbed them in a hospital in the eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai, according to the state press of the Asian country.
The Global Times newspaper assures that there is no fear for the lives of the injured, adding that the assailant was “subdued” by the police while trying to “injure other hostages” in the Ruijin hospital, located in the Hunangpu district.
The motives for the attack remain unclear at the moment.
Police received calls for help from Ruijin Hospital in the center of China’s economic capital late in the morning and immediately dispatched officers.
“Police quickly arrived at the scene and discovered a man holding a group of people hostage with a knife on the seventh floor of the hospital,” police said in a statement, reports AFP.
“When the suspect attempted to attack the hostages and officers, the police opened fire to wound and subdue him,” the statement added.
Social media users in the country posted videos of armed police officers trying to enter a locked room inside the hospital, while others shared videos in which dozens of people could be seen running from the building.
Several indiscriminate knife attacks have been reported in China in recent years, some of them targeting minors in schools or even nurseries, often perpetrated by people with mental health problems.
Mass crimes are rare in China, where the use of firearms is strictly prohibited, but knife attacks do occur occasionally.
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