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 Marktplat🀅z 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 polꦜiceman in the neck and trying to attack another. Just when he stabbed a police persoꦆnnel from behind, another officer shot at the attacker.
The attacker, in the video, immediately fell to the ground with police perso💧nnel 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 -- w🎃ho has spoken at seve🐬ral 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 Freihe🦩it. The party was later dissolved in 2016.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that it is upto the investigatꦗion 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 sta𒁏tement.
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.
Mea𒁃nwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X and said that the "images from Mannheim are terrible". "Several people were seriously injured by an att𝕴acker. My thoughts are with the victims. Violence is absolutely unacceptable in our democracy," he added.
The German Chancellor said that perpetrator must be "seve🔜rely punishe♒d".
Mannheim is a 🐈city of about 300,000 people, located in the south of Frankfurt.
