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A man holding what appeared to be a three-foot-long sword stabbed a Chinese woman and her French husband outside a Uniqlo clothing store in Beijing’s upscale shopping and entertainment district of Sanlitun on Thursday, the police said. Both were taken to a hospital, where the woman died, the police said on their official Weibo account.

Officials at the French Embassy identified the male victim as a French citizen and the woman as Chinese, and said they were married. They declined to give further details, citing privacy concerns. On Friday, The Beijing News reported unnamed friends as saying that the woman was Gu Wenqing, 28, a tattoo artist who studied digital design at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, and that she and her husband were married on Aug. 4 and planning to leave for France in September.

The police said they had arrested the assailant, whom they identified as a 25-year-old man with the surname Gao from the city of Tonghua in the northeastern province of Jilin. They said they had determined “no reason” for the attack, which took place just before the lunch hour, when the area is typically crowded with office workers and shoppers.

Sword-wielding man stabs woman outside Uniqlo in Beijing – //t.co/tIgZFJAijU //t.co/IEmgHcMEIX — Naija Buzz Hub (@naijabuzzhub) 13 Aug 15

Images on social media and a cellphone video showed a woman lying in a pool of blood about 60 feet in front of the store, her husband trying to stanch the bleeding. The video shows the attacker, in black trousers and a long-sleeve white shirt, milling about outside the nearby Uniqlo store as the woman lay on the ground and some people walked by, apparently nonchalantly.

According to witnesses, after the attacker stabbed the couple, he entered the store, took a mannequin from its display window, pulled it out by the front door and threw it to the ground, as pedestrians and shoppers dodged in fear.

“And then he was just standing there holding the sword,” said one witness, a young man who was running errands in the area.

Images of sword wielding assailant standing nonchalantly outside of Beijing Uniqlo //t.co/65PI0KMrhV — Steve George (@steve0george) 13 Aug 15

An employee at a nearby Adidas store said that after the attacker re-emerged from Uniqlo, nearby shops immediately locked their doors to protect staff members and customers. The attacker stood alone on the open space between the stores and the street, pacing back and forth, sword in hand.

The Adidas employee said everyone in the shop held their breath and waited “quite a while” for the police to arrive. When the assailant saw the police approaching, he tossed his sword to the ground and gave himself up, the employee said.

Two years ago, a man with a knife stabbed and killed two shoppers, including a foreign woman, at the Chaoyang Joy City mall in Beijing. A local magazine identified her as an American citizen.

In 2012, Howard Thomas Mills, also an American, was stabbed and killed by a man in another crowded shopping district of Beijing.

Last month, the same Uniqlo store was involved in a scandal when a video of a couple having sex in a dressing room was uploaded to the Internet, where it went viral. The Beijing police detained at least four people over the episode, and the store became a pilgrimage site for selfie takers.

By late Thursday afternoon, a new stream of passers-by were taking selfies at the site and photographing the store.

Asked why, one man said: “Something big happened here this morning. Someone was killed. My friends are all asking me on WeChat to show the place where it happened.” He then rushed off, declining to give his name.

Cleaning up the blood after stabbing of woman outside Uniqlo Beijing, picture from Weibo. //t.co/1Imk41JLIJ — Manya Koetse (@manyapan) 13 Aug 15

Follow Didi Kirsten Tatlow on Twitter @dktatlowand Mia Li @MiaInChina.