R. Priebe, DPA/AFP | Police vehicle and ambulance stand in front of a business building in Heidelberg, where a man ploughed into pedestrians on February 25.

A car ploughed into a crowd in the southern German city of Heidelberg on Saturday, killing one person and injuring two others, police said. The driver was shot and arrested.

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A 73-year-old German man died in hospital after he was seriously injured when a vehicle ploughed into a group of people standing outside a bakery, police and prosecutors said in a joint statement.

The two other victims – a 32-year-old Austrian man and a 29-year-old woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina – received medical treatment but were later discharged.

German authorities said earlier that the driver emerged from the vehicle carrying a knife. Police shot him and placed him under arrest, and he is now at a hospital in Heidelberg.

Investigations by the public prosecutors' office and local criminal police were continuing, but police said there have so far been no signs of the perpetrator having any links to terrorism.

"There are no indications of a terrorist background," said police spokesman David Faulhaber, adding that he could not comment on the possible motive for the attack.

Regional newspaper "Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung" cited police as saying the suspect was a young German man. The newspaper said the suspect initially stopped at a red traffic light. When it turned green, he drove at high speed into a group of people and then smashed into a pillar.

German authorities have been on high alert since a failed Tunisian asylum-seeker drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, killing 12 people.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

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