A bloody stabbing on a train and around the platform of a train station near Munich early Tuesday left one person dead and three injured.
Officials were investigating whether the attack was politically motivated, after witnesses heard the attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great,"
The Associated Press reported.
The suspect, a 27-year-old German citizen, may have been mentally disturbed, the AP said. He attacked several people with a four-inch knife shortly before 5 a.m. at Grafing Bahnhof station, about 20 miles east of Munich.
A 56-year-old victim died and three other men, ages 43, 55 and 58, were injured, the AP reported.
The suspect was arrested near the station,
CNN reported.
Bavarian State Police spokesman Karl-Heinz Segerer said the man who died was attacked while on a train,
NBC News reported. A second man was reportedly attacked on the platform, and two other victims were on bicycles at the station's entrance.
"At the moment, the first findings indicate that the assailant is of German origin," Bavaria's interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, told reporters. "It is still unclear whether the assailant is of a different background or is mentally ill, or perhaps suffering from drug addiction."
The Independent identified the suspect as Paul H, from Giessen in the state of Hesse.
"Something like this is completely new and has shaken people deeply - it is something you only see on television," Grafing Mayor Angelika Obermayr said, according to The Independent. "That it happened here is completely incomprehensible."
Evidence being investigated included more than 40 bloody footprints, including barefoot prints, on the platform and a cellphone recovered from between the train and platform,
Fox News reported.