This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Armed police have sealed off a mosque in London after a man was fatally stabbed in a nearby street.

The Metropolitan police said the victim, who was believed to be in his early 20s, was found with stab wounds in Elmton Court, Cunningham Place, near Regent’s Park, at about 6.15pm on Thursday.

He was treated at the scene with help from London ambulance service paramedics but later died in hospital, the force said.

A Met police spokeswoman confirmed a search at a nearby mosque was linked to the stabbing.

Armed officers could be seen searching stairwells and the outside area at the back of the mosque – including one part of the building under a large patio – at well past 11pm.

At around 11.30pm roads re-opened around the mosque. Armed officers could also be seen leaving the scene.

A Met police statement said that cordons including the London Central Mosque were likely to remain in place overnight.”

Witnesses claimed they saw two men being detained in handcuffs but the Met said no arrests have been made and officers continue to hunt the suspects. The force tweeted that the attack was not terror-related.

Metropolitan Police (@metpoliceuk) Officers continue to deal with a stabbing at Cunningham Place/Park Road, #Westminster. We can confirm that this incident is not terror related. Searches for suspects are ongoing.

Video from outside the mosque shared on social media showed armed police at the gates to the London Central mosque as a helicopter circled overhead.

Quick guide Knife crime in the UK Show Hide What is the scale of the problem? Police chiefs have described the recent spate of knife crime as ‘a national emergency’. In the first two months of 2019 there were 17 homicides in London alone, where 35% of all knife crimes are committed. The number of NHS England admissions among people aged 10-19 with knife wounds has risen 60% in five years, surpassing 1,000 last year. The number of knife and offensive weapon offences in England and Wales have risen to their highest level for nearly a decade, with the number of cases dealt with by the criminal justice system up by more than a third since 2015. Knife crime-related offences recorded by the police rose by 8% in England and Wales in 2018. Figures on sentences handed out for such crimes, published by the Ministry of Justice, showed there were 22,041 knife and weapon offences formally dealt with by the criminal justice system in the year ending March 2019. This is the highest rate since 2010, when the number was 23,667.

What happens to people caught with knives? In the year ending March 2019, 37% of knife and offensive weapon offences resulted in an immediate custodial sentence, compared with 22% in 2009, when the data was first published. The average length of the custodial sentences rose to the longest in a decade, from 5.5 months to 8.1 months. Are younger people more at risk of being involved in knife crime? The MoJ figures revealed that the number of juvenile offenders convicted or cautioned for possession or threats using a knife or offensive weapon increased by almost half (48%) between the year ending March 2015 and the year ending March 2019. The increase in adult offenders over the same period was smaller, at 31%. However, adult offenders still accounted for 74% of the total increase in cautions and convictions received for those offences in that period. What are the government doing about knife crime? In March 2019 chancellor, Philip Hammond, handed an extra £100m to police forces in England and Wales after a spate of fatal stabbings led to a renewed focus on rising knife crime and police resources. In the same month more than 10,000 knives were seized and 1,372 suspects arrested during a week-long national knife crime crackdown. Officers carried out 3,771 weapons searches, during which 342 knives were found. Another 10,215 were handed in as part of amnesties.

A new Offensive Weapons Act was passed in May 2019, making it illegal to possess dangerous weapons including knuckledusters, zombie knives and death star knives. It also made it a criminal offence to dispatch bladed products sold online without verifying the buyer is over 18.

Bahir Moulana told the Press Association that, as he was walking towards the mosque, police were pushing people back before they closed the main gate.

With a number of armed officers at the scene, the 39-year-old said it gave him the “jitters”, especially following the recent attack at two mosques in New Zealand. “I saw all the blue lights and my heart was in my mouth,” Moulana said.

With worshippers eventually let out of the building, he added: “There was one girl who said she saw two guys run in. Someone else told me the police were chasing them.”

Moulana said he saw two people being detained and put in handcuffs by the police at the mosque. “The police just surrounded them,” he said. “I saw that at around 7pm.”