TOKYO (TR) – Tokyo Metropolitan Police have arrested a 25-year-old male university student from Nepal for allegedly throwing trash onto a railway in Nakano Ward last year, reports the Sankei Shimbun (May 23).
At around 12:20 a.m. on December 5, Prakash Mahatala is suspected of throwing trash cans and plastic bottle collection nets that he found on the street onto the tracks of the JR Chuo-Sobu Line.
As a result, a total of nine trains, including for the Sobu and Yamanote lines, were delayed by up to 31 minutes, impacting about 5,000 people.
Upon his arrest on suspicion of endangering train traffic and disruption of business, the suspect denied the allegations. “I do not remember,” he told police.
According to police, Mahatala picked up the trash can on the road and threw it over a two-meter fence and onto the tracks.
According to police, a railway operator working on track repair work reported the incident on the same day. Empty cans and other items were scattered over a stretch of about 240 meters between Nakano and Higashi-Nakano stations.
A senior police official warned, “If [the trash] comes into contact with power lines or other objects, this is a dangerous act that could cause even greater disruptions to train services.”
