A man, a woman and a police officer were being treated for knife injuries after a stabbing at a railway station in the British city of Manchester.

Witness Sam Clack, 38, a BBC radio producer, said he heard the suspect shouting “Allah” before and during the attack.

“As long as you keep bombing other countries this sort of sh*t is going to keep happening,” Mr Clack quoted the suspect as having said.

The attack took place at Manchester Victoria station in the northwest English city on New Year’s Eve just before 9pm local time. The suspect is in custody.

British Transport Police said in a statement that two members of the public and one of its officers was being treated for their injuries.

Mr Clack described the terrifying moment the suspect attacked.

“I just heard this most blood curdling scream and looked down the platform,” he said.

“He came towards me. I looked down and saw he had a kitchen knife with a black handle with a good 12 inch (30cm) blade. It was just fear, pure fear.”

Mr Clack said police officers used a stun gun and pepper spray before, “six or seven” officers jumped on the man.

He said he heard the alleged knifeman shouting “Allah” during the attack.

“He shouted it before, he shouted it during it — ‘Allah’,” Mr Clack said.

“The guy, his exact words were, he said, ‘As long as you keep bombing other countries, this sort of sh*t is going to keep happening’.”

Transport police said officers remained at the scene along with colleagues from the Greater Manchester Police Force and the ambulance service.

“Officers are attending Manchester Victoria station following reports of a man wielding a knife,” it said in a statement,

“A man has been detained and two members of the public, a man and a woman have been taken to hospital with knife injuries. A BTP officer is also receiving treatment for a stab wound to the shoulder.”

In a separate incident, police have arrested 39 revellers on suspicion of attempted murder after a man was chased down in a knife attack in one of London’s most affluent suburbs.

Police said the mass arrest was an attempt to break a pact of silence among those with knowlege of the incident.

The victim, aged in his 30s, has been left fighting for his life after he was chased by a gang of men and women from a shop in Fulham, west London, before being stabbed and left for dead.

Police say the group then retreated to a late night party in a first floor flat just metres from where ambulance crews fought to save the man’s life as he lay bleeding in the street.

Witnesses saw around 50 officers approach the site of the party, before lining up revellers, interrogating them for up to an hour and packing them into vans.

Two knives were found close by. Last night the victim remained in hospital in critical condition.

The incident capped off a terrifying year for stabbings in London with 70 knife killings out of 132 homicides – the most since 2008 when the toll reached 154.

— With wires