Fujian knife attack death toll hits 3

The death toll from Tuesday's knife attack in southeast China's Fujian province rose to three when one injured person died in hospital on Wednesday, local police authorities said.

A man wielding a fruit knife with a 20-cm-long blade stabbed to death two people, including one off-duty police officer, at about 10:00 pm on Tuesday near a supermarket in downtown Fuzhou, capital of Fujian, according to the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau.

A third person was also injured in the stabbing spree. The person was declared dead after medical treatment failed at a local hospital on Wednesday morning.

The 26-year-old suspect, surnamed Chen, was captured by half a dozen passersby at the scene.

Chen resigned from a tech firm in the city of Xiamen on Monday and boarded a train to Fuzhou on Tuesday. After failing a train ticket for a return on Tuesday to his hometown of Nanping, Chen went to downtown Fuzhou to seek shelter from one of his former classmates, the police authorities said in a statement.

During a police interrogation, he said he felt he was being followed by someone and so bought two fruit knives, one with a 20-cm-long blade and another measuring 10 cm, from a supermarket and then stabbed passersby.