Paris, Sep 10: Seven people have been injured in an attack by a man armed with a knife and an iron bar in the French capital, the police said.
The incident that took place on Sunday night on the banks of a canal in the 19th arrondissement, in the northeast of the capital, was not initially being treated as terrorism, officials were cited as saying by the BBC.
The attacker, said to be an Afghan national, was later arrested by the police. The man's motives and identity were not immediately known. Two British tourists were among the injured.
The assailant attacked strangers, initially stabbing two men and a woman near the MK2 cinema on the Quai de Loire, along the Ourcq canal, shortly before 11 p.m, according to the newspaper Le Parisien and the news channel BFM TV.
A group of men playing pétanque nearby tried to stop him -- one of them threw his pétanque ball at him -- but the attacker continued down a side street and attacked more people, including the British tourists, the reports said.
"We are urgently investigating this incident and are in close contact with the French authorities," the UK Foreign Office said in a statement.
"Solidarity with the victims and profound gratitude for the firefighters and the emergency services who immediately arrived, and for the police forces who enabled the arrest," Mounir Mahjoubi, the junior minister for digital affairs in the French government, tweeted.
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Thane (PTI): A 23-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly molesting and extorting Rs 50,000 from a 15-year-old schoolgirl over six months in Thane city, police said on Wednesday.
Accused Prathamesh Desai, a resident of Lokmanya Nagar, was taken into custody following a complaint by the girl’s parents on March 1.
A police official from the Vartak Nagar police station said Desai targeted the teenager between September 2025 and February 2026. “On multiple occasions, he took her to isolated locations and molested her,” the official said, citing the FIR.
The accused threatened to inform the girl’s parents about their purported “relationship” and extracted a total of Rs 50,000 from her, he said.
“Unable to bear the persistent threats and financial demands, the girl finally confided in her parents, who approached the police,” the official said.
Desai has been booked under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he said, adding that further investigation was underway.
