LONDON: A man has been arrested after an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were stabbed in central London, London's Metropolitan Police said Monday.
The attack occurred in Leicester Square, a magnet for tourists with its shops, theaters and cinemas. The square and surrounding area have an estimated 2.5 million visitors every week.
Police said the two victims were taken to a major trauma center. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.
According to a report by the Guardian newspaper, a security guard present at the site jumped on the attacker and took the knife from him.
The 29-year-old guard named Abdullah, told the PA news agency: “I heard a scream. At that moment, I saw there was one person, roughly [in his] mid-30s or early 30s, and he was like stabbing a kid. I jumped on him, held the hand in which he was [carrying] a knife and just put him down on the floor and just held him and took the knife away from him,"
“Then a couple of more people joined as well, and we just held him until the police came. It took maybe three to four minutes for the police to arrive, and then they just took him into custody,” the guard said.
The stabbing occurred as Britain is on edge after violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fueled by right-wing activists who used social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event.
It was not immediately clear whether the stabbing had any link to the unrest.
Police had been braced for further riots over the weekend, but no widespread unrest emerged. Ministers remained on high alert, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said, adding its work was not done in dealing with the fallout from the violence.