Net users in Japan are in shock today after reading the news of how a blind high school girl in Saitama Prefecture was injured after being viciously kicked by an unknown assailant while making her way to school. This news comes just weeks after it was learned that a guide dog was stabbed three times by a passenger on a crowded train in the same prefecture.
At approximately 7:50 a.m. on the morning of September 8, a first-year high school student was kicked from behind as she made her way to Hanawa Hokiichi Gakuen, a school for the blind and partially sighted.
The Mainichi Shinbun reports that the girl noticed someone’s leg make contact with her cane as she was using it to follow the tactile paving leading out of JR Kawagoe Station to the bus stop, possibly stumbling over it. Seconds later, she was kicked hard in the back of her right knee and fell to the ground.
Although her assailant was neither apprehended nor formally identified, the girl later said that immediately after she had been kicked she heard an onlooker call out, “What are you doing!?” The attacker, however, remained silent as they left the scene.
Net users were as shocked and outraged as you’d imagine:
“This is disgusting. I hope the perpetrator gets a harsh punishment.”
“Surely this was caught on CCTV?”
“First that guide dog and now this; what is going on?”
“There are some genuinely heartless people out there.”
“The person who called out or witnessed this should go to the police.”
“I had no idea what was happening; I was so scared,” the girl told the Mainichi, “I’ve had people grumble about tripping on my white cane in the past, but I never thought someone would lash out like that.”
After being examined by a doctor, it was confirmed that the girl’s leg was not fractured. It will, however, take several weeks to heal completely.
Source: The Mainichi Shinbun, Itai News
Feature image (used for illustrative purposes only) via TJF
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