Shoppers left terrified as three people were ‘cut’ by a Narre Warren man in the latest violent scenes at Melb Shopping Center

Police say the 30-year-old man committed multiple assaults at the Westfield Fountain Gate shopping center.

Three people were taken to hospital after he allegedly cut them open at the bus stop outside the complex.

“It is alleged a man slashed three people with a box cutter near a shopping center bus stop on Overland Drive at around 2.25pm,” Victoria Police said in a statement.

“The man is said to have fled the scene before police arrested the 30-year-old Narre Warren man in the center shortly later.

“One woman and two men were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.”

Knife incidents in Melbourne shopping centers have become a disturbing trend, with machetes often the weapon of choice.

Notably, a 15-year-old boy was arrested in September after a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death at the Woodgrove Shopping Center in Melbourne’s west.

Police said the 16-year-old boy was stabbed “multiple times” during an altercation with the other teen.

Last month, a man was arrested after allegedly stabbing two people with a broken bottle at a Waverley Gardens Shopping Center in Melbourne’s south-east.

It is understood the man allegedly stabbed two men downtown before shoppers made a citizen’s arrest, with the alleged attacker held until police arrived.

A week earlier, in a separate incident in Westfield Doncaster, about 20 kilometers northeast of Melbourne’s CBD, three boys were rushed to hospital after a stabbing.

One with a suspected stab wound to his upper body, while another had a cut to his back and a third boy suffered a laceration to his arm, police said.