Japanese man stabbed himself because he didn't want to go to work

A Japanese man has been arrested for stabbing himself in order to get off work because he couldn't face the daily grind. Masaru Miura, 54, drove a 13cm blade into his hip at a subway station during morning rush hour.

The incident, believed to be the first reported of its kind, took place in the city of city of Kasugai, Aichi. At around 7.20am on 22 February Miura entered the bathroom of Nagoya municipal subway station and stabbed himself with a knife.

The white-collar worker, whose exact profession is unknown, then dragged himself to a kōban (police box) and said he had been attacked. He filed a report saying: "An unknown man stabbed me from behind."

He showed officers the wound, which was reportedly 2.5cm deep. As police probed Miura about the incident they started to suspect that it didn't stand up. After some interrogation the desperate man admitted he had actually stabbed himself.

He confessed he had committed the act in order to avoid going to work for the day as he was suffering from severe stress. Miura said: "I didn't want to go to work so I did it" and "If I got hurt I thought I would not have to go to work," according to quirky news site japankyo.

He said he found the knife in a thicket on the way to work. He was subsequently arrested for wasting police time.

Suicide rates in Japan are among the highest in the world and work-related stress is often blamed as a contributing factor.

In 2015 a Japanese government study also found that a record number of children commit suicide after summer and spring holidays. The study covered 18,048 child suicide cases between 1972 and 2013 in 18,048 suicide cases.