Courtesy: Dawn News/AFP
PARIS: French police on Tuesday shot and seriously wounded an unarmed woman at a train station in Paris during morning rush hour.
The incident came with the country on its maximum alert for potential attacks but with the police also under scrutiny over recent fatal shootings of suspects.
Witnesses said the 38-year-old woman, who was wearing a hijab, recited “Allahu akbar” and said “you will all die”, a police source said, adding that “police fired because they feared for their safety”.
After passengers on a suburban train travelling from the eastern suburbs to Paris alerted police, agents managed to “isolate” the woman at the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand station on the capital’s south bank which was evacuated, the source said.
Bomb alerts have led to the evacuation of dozens of airports, train stations and tourist sites — including the Versailles palace — in recent weeks. On Monday, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that there had been 819 anti-Semitic acts in France since Oct 7, and 414 connected arrests.