Photo/Illutration Police officers on May 10 search the vicinity where a 13-year-old junior high school student was stabbed earlier that day in Tokyo’s Ota Ward. (Doni Tani)

A man has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing a junior high school student who was leaving for school on May 10 in Tokyo's Ota Ward.

A passer-by made an emergency call at around 8:05 a.m. saying that, “A child had been stabbed” on the grounds of a house in the ward. 

Yasunori Yamashita, 61, with no known address or occupation, was arrested near the spot by the Metropolitan Police Department on suspicion of injuring the 13-year-old junior high school first-grade boy with a knife.

The student was transported to a hospital where police said he was conscious.

According to the Kamata Police Station, Yamashita is suspected of injuring the boy by stabbing him in the chest at the location in the Nishi-Kamata district in Ota Ward.

The suspect has admitted to the charges, according to police. 

The student bled after the stabbing. Police believe that he was on his way to school as he was wearing what appeared to be a school uniform.

Around 10 minutes after the emergency call was made, police officers from the Kamata Police Station spotted Yamashita on the street several tens of meters from the crime scene.

His hands and clothes were smeared with blood, according to police.

According to a 70-year-man living nearby, whose wife made the emergency call, the scene of the crime is at the home of the victim and his parents.

The man said, “In the morning, I heard his mother saying that her son had been stabbed. There was blood on the student’s stomach and legs.”

The student’s father told police that Yamashita is an acquaintance of his.

The crime scene is in a residential area about 400 meters west of JR Kamata Station. The municipal Misono Junior High School is located nearby.