German police have arrested a 15-year-old and are investigating whether there is a connection between the arrest and a knife attack in the western German city of Solingen on Friday that left three people dead and eight others injured.

Prosecutor Markus Caspers said the police assume a terrorist motive. No other motive is apparent and the victims apparently did not know anything about the attacker.

The police chief said officers did not believe anyone else was involved in the attack, responding to a question about speculation on social media that there were multiple attackers. He appealed to the public for more information and asked people not to speculate or share information on social media.

Investigators found several knives in the area but do not yet know which, if any, were used in the attack. German media previously reported that a weapon had been found in a trash can in downtown Solingen.

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Police also confirmed that two men and a woman were killed in the attack. The two men are reportedly aged 67 and 56, and the woman is 56.

The incident occurred on Friday at around 9.40pm (7.40pm Irish time) when the man attacked several people with a knife, police said. The motive is still unclear.

“The perpetrator must be caught quickly and punished to the fullest extent possible under the law,” said Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a post on X.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had previously stated that the security authorities would do everything in their power to catch the perpetrator and determine the background to the attack. The attack took place on the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were playing. It was during a festival to mark the 650th anniversary of the city in the North Rhine-Westphalian state on the border with the Netherlands.

The police cordoned off the square on Saturday, and passers-by laid candles and flowers in front of the barriers.

“We are full of shock and sadness,” said Solingen’s mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach to journalists on Saturday morning.

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The German musician, who goes by the pseudonym Topic, said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was informed of the incident but was told to move on “to avoid a mass panic attack,” he posted on Instagram.

Eventually he was told to stop, and “with the attacker still fleeing, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled overhead,” Topic wrote.

The authorities have cancelled the rest of the festival weekend.

The perpetrator had aimed specifically at the throat, said a police spokesman. A second spokesman later refused to confirm or deny this detail and referred to a press conference scheduled for the afternoon.

Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively rare in Germany. The government announced earlier this month that it wanted to tighten the rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum permitted length.

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In June, a 29-year-old police officer died after being stabbed in Mannheim during an attack on a right-wing extremist demonstration. Several people were injured in a knife attack on a train in 2021.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul visited the crime scene early Saturday. He told reporters that it was a targeted attack on human life, but declined to comment on the motives.

Solingen, known for its knife industry, is a city of around 165,000 inhabitants. – Reuters