Several newspapers report that an off-duty Egyptian police officer boarded a train on Tuesday in Samallūt, a city in the Minya Governorate in southern Egypt, before shotting six people, who were discovered to be Christians.
Al-Misrī al-Yawm reports that 71 year-old Fathī Mus’ad Ghattas was killed in the shooting. Several papers identified the alleged killer as ‘Āmir ‘Āshūr, a policeman at the Banī Mazār Police Detective Unit.
An immediate motive is not immediately apparent, but Al-Hayāh’s report quoted informed sources as saying it was probably a vendetta crime. Police arrested the man several hundred meters from the station as he attempted to flee the scene. The papers report that he is now being questioned.
Al-Misrī al-Yawm cited security sources as denying that there were "terrorist" motives behind the attack. Opposition al-Wafd said that the injured had identified the shooter, indicating that the victims may have already known the man.
[The reports appeared in Al-Misrī al-Yawm, p.1, Al-Wafd p.1, Al-Hayāh, p.6 and Al-Ahrām, p.1.]
