A knife-wielding assailant stabbed two college students to death in the streets of the English city of Nottingham and then fatally stabbed a middle-aged man, stole his van and ran down three pedestrians in a shocking early morning rampage Tuesday, police said.

One man was hospitalized in critical condition from the hit-and-run.

A 31-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and police said they believe he acted alone. Nottinghamshire Police detectives were working with counterterrorism officers to try to establish a motive.

“This is an horrific and tragic incident which has claimed the lives of three people,” Chief Constable Kate Meynell said.

Two 19-year-old students from the University of Nottingham were among the dead.

“We are shocked and devastated by the news,” the school said in an announcement.

A graduation ball that had been scheduled Tuesday evening was canceled.

The attack on the students occurred around dawn when the two were found dead on a road near student housing that’s a short walk from the university’s Jubilee Campus. The man’s body was later found on a different street more than a mile away.

Witnesses described a horrifying scene in the city center about 90 minutes after the initial attack when the van ran into pedestrians at a street corner and then fled.

Lynn Haggitt was on her way to work when a white van pulled up beside her at 5:30 a.m. She saw the driver look in his mirror and spot a police car approaching slowly from behind without its lights on. The driver then accelerated and struck a man and woman at a street corner, she said.

“He went straight into them, he didn’t even bother to turn,” Haggitt told reporters. “The woman went on the curb, the man went up in the air, there was such a bang, I wish I never saw it, it’s really shaken me up.”

The driver then sped through the city center with police on his tail, she added.

She said the wounded man appeared to have a head injury but was helped to his feet. The woman was sitting on the curb and appeared to be OK.

The third pedestrian was struck on the same street, police said. All three were hospitalized, with one in critical condition.

“We believe these three incidents are all linked and we have a man in custody,” Meynell said. “We are keeping an open mind as we investigate the circumstances surrounding these incidents and are working alongside Counter Terrorism Policing to establish the facts, as we would normally do in these types of circumstances.”

The attacks occurred in at least three different places and the suspect was arrested in a fourth location.

Kane Brady, a student at the University of Nottingham, said he awoke to shouts of “armed police” and heard what sounded like a gunshot outside.

He said he saw officers holding stun guns and a man being dragged out of the van and pinned on the ground.

“I saw him getting arrested, him trying to resist,” he told GB News. “When they opened the van, I saw a large knife being pulled out and then straight away that’s when police closed off both roads.”

Photos showed the hood of the van dented and cracks in the windshield.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called it a shocking incident and asked that police be given time to investigate the crime.

“My thoughts are with those injured, and the family and loved ones of those who have lost their lives,” Sunak said.

Images on social media showed police, some with rifles, standing near cordons at several locations in the city center.

The city’s tram network said it had suspended all services.

Nottingham is a city of about 350,000 people some 110 miles (175 kilometers) north of London.

(AP)