International News

LONDON, Oct 8, 2017 (APP/AFP) -:Eleven people were injured on Saturday when a car mounted the pavement and ploughed into pedestrians near London’s
Natural History Museum, leading to the driver’s arrest on suspicion of dangerous driving.
Police said it was a traffic incident and ruled out any terrorist link,
after three attacks in the British capital this year in which vehicles were
deliberately driven into people on the street.
Crowds in the area, which is popular with families and tourists, fled
screaming in panic when the car veered onto the semi-pedestrianised Exhibition
Road in South Kensington.
Witness accounts and footage posted on social media showed a man being
pinned down on the ground by passers-by, next to a black car with a smashed
bonnet.
“The incident is a road traffic investigation and not a terrorist-related
incident,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.
“Whilst enquiries continue it is believed a car mounted the pavement and
collided with a number of pedestrians.”
It said the arrested man was among nine people taken to hospital, while two
others were treated at the scene.
No one is believed to have life-threatening or life-changing injuries, and
the majority were discharged by late Saturday.
The suspect, in his forties, was then taken to London police station where
he was questioned on suspicion of dangerous driving, police said.
Armed police were deployed to the scene and much of the surrounding area,
which includes the Science Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum, was
cordoned off.
Security is high in Britain after five terror attacks since March — four
of them in London and one in Manchester — with the bloodshed claiming 35 lives.
Prime Minister Theresa May offered her thanks to the emergency services,
adding: “My thoughts are with the injured.”