Police in Germany's Mannheim city shot a man who injured several people in a knife attack at a far-right event on Friday. The incident, at the southwestern city's Marktplatz square, took place shortly after 11:30 am (09:30 GMT), police said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that perpetrator must be "severely punished".
Police in Germany's Mannheim city shot a man who injured several people in a knife attack at a far-right event on Friday. The incident, at the southwestern city's Marktplatz square, took place shortly after 11:30 am (09:30 GMT), police said.
A video of the attack, from an event's livestream, also went viral on social media, showing the man chasing people with a knife, stabbing a policeman in the neck and trying to attack another. Just when he stabbed a police personnel from behind, another officer shot at the attacker.
The attacker, in the video, immediately fell to the ground with police personnel gathering around him. He also seemed to have been wounded.
The attack took place on the sidelines of an event organised by a group called Pax Europa. The group describes itself as an organisation that informs the public about the dangers posed by the "increasing spread and influence of political Islam".
Among those injured, was an anti-Islam activist -- Michael Stürzenberger -- who has spoken at several of Pax Europa's events.
The 58-year-old is one of the authors of the anti-Muslim platform, PI-News. He is also being surveilled by the Bavarian domestic intelligence service, BBC reported.
Stürzenberger is also a former politician who led a small right-wing populist party called Die Freiheit. The party was later dissolved in 2016.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that it is upto the investigation to determine the motive behind the attack.
"If the investigation shows an Islamist motive, that would be another confirmation of the great danger from Islamist acts of violence that we have warned of," she said in a statement.
Faeser thanked the police officers who immediately intervened in the situation, along with the doctors and paramedics "who are fighting for the lives of the victims of this terrible crime", Sky News quoted her.
Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X and said that the "images from Mannheim are terrible". "Several people were seriously injured by an attacker. My thoughts are with the victims. Violence is absolutely unacceptable in our democracy," he added.
The German Chancellor said that perpetrator must be "severely punished".
Mannheim is a city of about 300,000 people, located in the south of Frankfurt.