Reclusive Japanese man killed by father who feared he might run amock

TOKYO: Fearing that his reclusive son might cause the public harm, a former top bureaucrat in Japan stabbed the 44-year-old to death, domestic media said, days after a mass stabbing by another recluse shook the nation. The incidents spotlight Japan’s growing legion of adult hikikomori, as they are known, people who live at home with their parents and seldom, if ever, venture out, spending their days in hermit-like seclusion. Tokyo metropolitan police said they arrested Hideaki Kumazawa, 76, on Saturday for attempted murder for allegedly stabbing his son with a knife. On Monday, media said he was now a murder suspect after the man died. National broadcaster NHK said Kumazawa, a former envoy to the Czech Republic, told investigators his alarm over his son was provoked by news last week of a knife-wielding man who slashed at a group of schoolgirls, killing two and injuring 17.