Knife attack behind Warsaw hotel leaves man, 58, hospitalised

A 58-year-old Indian national was seriously injured in a knife attack behind the Novotel hotel on Nowogrodzka Street in central Warsaw on Thursday afternoon, Polish police said. The attacker fled the scene and remained at large hours later, with officers searching the area.

Police received a report of the attack shortly after midday, officer Jakub Pacyniak of the Warsaw I district police station told reporters. Officers reached the scene within minutes and found the victim, who was taken to hospital by ambulance crew, police said.

Witnesses told police the victim was attacked by another man using what they believed was a knife, though officers said they were still verifying exactly what weapon was used. Witnesses said only one person was involved and that he left the area a few minutes before officers arrived, Pacyniak said.

Police declined to confirm further details of the victim's condition while he was being treated. "At this point, for the sake of the investigation and the situation, we are not giving detailed information. We have received information that the injured party is a man, he required hospitalisation and was taken to hospital," a police spokesman said, adding that officers would speak to him once his health allowed it.

Pacyniak said officers were focused on finding the attacker but declined to describe the operation as a manhunt, saying he did not want to alarm the public. He said the area behind the hotel had been secured while officers gathered evidence and questioned witnesses, and that the priority for now was securing material for the case file and detaining the man involved.

The attack is the second knife incident on police record in Warsaw in recent days: two passengers were earlier wounded, with injuries to the neck and chest, in a separate knife attack on a city bus in the Bielany district, prompting a separate police search at the time.