Allegedly Trying To Burn A Shinkansen Train While Inspired By Joker's Attack, Grandpa In Japan Arrested

Illustration of a shinkansen train fleet. (Wikimedia Commons/SElefant)

JAKARTA - A man was arrested on suspicion of trying to start a fire on a shinkansen bullet train in southwest Japan early Monday, in an incident apparently inspired by the recent arson attack on a train in Tokyo on Halloween, police said.

Kiyoshi Miyake, 69, from Fukuoka was arrested at the scene, police said. No injuries were reported on the train from Hiroshima to Kagoshima-Chuo Station, which was running in Kumamoto Prefecture at the time of the incident at around 8:40 am, according to Kyushu Railway Co., known as JR Kyushu, citing Kyodo News Nov. 8.

Miyake was quoted as telling prefectural police he 'wanted to emulate' the recent knife attack and arson on a train in Tokyo after seeing news about it.

He was found to have splashed liquid, set fire to a piece of paper with a match and threw it on the floor, according to police.

Smoke was seen inside carriage number 3 with about 30 people on board, the operator said. After the emergency bell rang, the train made an emergency stop.

After transferring passengers in carriage No. 3 to another carriage, the train arrived at its final destination around 10.25.

Several shinkansen services were suspended, resulting in delays of up to 50 minutes and affecting approximately 900 passengers.

Earlier, in the October 31 incident, a man wearing a costume reminiscent of Batman's villain, the Joker, injured 17 people, including one seriously, during an attack on a Keio Line train.

The man, later identified as Kyota Hattori, told investigators he admired the Joker and wanted to kill people and was sentenced to death.

To note, a number of attacks on trains and stations in the Tokyo area have occurred in recent years. A man stabbed and injured 10 passengers in August on the Odakyu Electric Railway commuter train in the capital's Setagaya Ward.

Much earlier, in the worst incident on a bullet train, a man set himself on fire on the shinkansen in June 2015, killing himself and a woman in her 50s. This left 26 other passengers injured, including two seriously, among about 800 passengers.