There was no sectarian motivation behind an incident on Tuesday in which a Muslim policeman shot dead one Coptic Christian and injured another five Copts, Minya Governor Ahmed Dyaa Eddin has said.
The policeman, along with the victims, were on board a train traveling from Assiut to Cairo. The shooting occurred at the Samalout stop in Minya.
Dyaa Eddin told the state-run Nile News on Tuesday night that a person boarded the train and shot indiscriminately at passengers. The shooter and the victims did not know each other, he said.
According to judicial sources, the shooter has been arrested and detained at the Samalut police station where he is currently under interrogation.
A number of relatives of the injured passengers assembled on the same day in front of Samalout police station to express their anger over the shooting.
The families refused to allow the victims to be treated at Samalout’s central hospital, asking for them to instead be taken to a church-run hospital.
The incident comes less than two weeks after a suicide bombing hit an Alexandria church on New Year's Eve, killing 23 and injuring up to 100.
