Six people have been injured in an attack aboard a Swiss train by a man armed with a knife and flammable fluid, police say.
Three adults, two teenagers and a child aged six were hurt, according to a St Gallen cantonal police statement.
Five were stabbed or burnt. A sixth suffered smoke inhalation as he came to the aid of the others. The assailant, a Swiss citizen, was also injured.
"According to current information, a 27-year-old Swiss man poured out a flammable liquid. He was also armed with at least one knife. The liquid caught fire," the statement said.
Authorities did not yet know the motive for the attacks but a crime of passion was one possibility, Bruno Metzger of the St Gallen cantonal police said in an interview with welt.de.
"A terrorism background still seems very, very far-fetched," Metzger said.
The assailant was in police custody, he said, but none of those injured - including the assailant - was responsive, so they could not be questioned.
Both a woman and the attacker were in critical condition, according to Swiss broadcaster SRF, citing the St Gallen police.
The attack occurred at 2:20pm local time as the train neared the Salez station on a trip between Buchs and Sennwald in St Gallen, a canton in the northeast of the Alpine republic, the police statement said.
It was the first attack of its kind in Switzerland in recent memory.
Reuters