BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific

Teen bat rampage shocks Tokyo

The high-school student, whose name was withheld, was seized on Saturday night after injuring eight people in Tokyo's Shibuya entertainment district.

One woman, a 68-year-old housewife, was severely wounded in the head, while other victims suffered minior injuries, a police official said.

The Jiji Press news agency quoted the boy as telling the police: "As I had a quarrel with my father, I wanted to put him to shame. Anyone would have been fine" as a victim.

Crime wave fears

Correspondents say Japanese have been shocked by a series of horrific crimes committed by teenagers.

Earlier in December police said 17-year-old boy detonated a home-made bomb in a Tokyo video rental shop hoping to "destroy a man."

Other crimes include the stabbing to death of three members of a family by a 15-year-old schoolboy in August, and two other apparently random murders by teenagers in May.

A 17-year-old boy was arrested in June for beating his mother to death with a baseball bat shortly after attacking four classmates in an argument reportedly over the length of his hair.

Saturday's attacks came as young movie fans flocked to see a controversial and violent new release about juvenile crime, Battle Royale.

Japan remains haunted by the 1997 incident in Kobe when a 14-year-old schoolboy decapitated a fellow pupil and stuck the head on the school gates.