Suspect kills self after stabbing to death Pokemon shop employee in Tokyo

A female employee at a Pokemon merchandise shop was stabbed to death in Tokyo's commercial complex on Thursday (March 26), and the suspected assailant also died after stabbing himself, shocking shoppers during children's spring break season in Japan.

The woman, in her 20s, was stabbed in her neck at 7:16 p.m. local time (1016 GMT) in a shopping mall by a man also in his 20s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said. Both were pronounced dead at a hospital within an hour, police said.

According to local media reports, the woman was a store clerk of the Pokemon Center in the building and the perpetrator was wielding knives in both hands.

Before Thursday's incident, police had received complaints from a person, believed to be the deceased woman, over alleged stalking, the Asahi newspaper reported. The store was crowded with apparently more than 100 customers, including many children and foreign tourists, before the sounds of falling shelves and a woman screaming "help!" could be heard, a witness who fled the scene told Asahi.

Strict gun controls in Japan mean knife attacks are a more common form of public violence, with multiple stabbing incidents on trains and at railway stations in the past few years.

-Production: Joseph Campbell/Reuters