By Pawel Florkiewicz and Alicja Surdy
WARSAW, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Thousands of Polish police officers visited schools nationwide to try to reassure pupils after two stabbing sprees by teenagers in as many days sparked rumours of a "Bloody Friday" of more attacks stemming from a supposed online challenge.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said there was no confirmed evidence that the school attacks were part of a coordinated operation or linked to an online challenge.
By early evening, police
officers had checked almost 35,000 schools and detained 59 people, police said on X.
"There will be no compromise here — the safety of youngsters is the most important thing," Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski told a press conference.
Education Minister Barbara Nowacka said 59 schools were closed, mainly in the Mazowsze region where the attacks took place.
TWO ATTACKS IN TWO DAYS
On Thursday, a 15-year-old former pupil wearing a helmet-mounted camera killed a caretaker and injured two teachers at a primary school in Leszczydol-Nowiny, northeast of Warsaw. On Wednesday, a 19-year-old wounded 10 people including himself at another school in Ostroleka, north of the capital.
The scale of the police deployment and the school closures underscored the shock in a country where such incidents have been very rare, and the speed with which online rumours have amplified the fear.
In Warsaw, 59-year-old NGO manager and mother-of-four Dorota Czekaj told Reuters the week's events had left her "simply terrified". She called for a tough response to any online content that could encourage violence.
The authorities also warned people of the risks of online disinformation. Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz suggested Russia could use such events to sow panic.
Russia has repeatedly denied attempting to destabilise Western countries using online disinformation.
POLICE ARREST TEENS
Polish police made a string of arrests on Friday.
These included a 13-year-old from Warsaw who posted a photo of a knife in a class group chat and threatened other students, a 14-year-old in Warsaw detained on school grounds with a knife and firecrackers, and two 15-year-olds from Pruszkow County, just outside the capital, who posted a video with threats to kill.
Several social media accounts posted pictures on Thursday of a TikTok account which purported to belong to the attacker from Leszczydol-Nowiny and featured images taken just before the incident. Reuters was unable to find the account, which appeared to have been taken down.
The Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime said it was aware of the content and that the platform was cooperating with the agency. TikTok did not reply to an emailed request for comment.
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz, Alicja Surdy, Kuba Stezycki; Additional reporting by Anna Koper; Writing by Alan Charlish;Editing by Gareth Jones and Alison williams)
