Just five meters away two of the three victims of an attack, two students in Nottingham this morning, were murdered from their home, with the third victim said to be a man in his 60s.

The three victims are believed to have been attacked at random, and stabbed to death by a man dressed in black. No other details about their identities have been released.

Anti-terror police have raided two buildings in Nottingham with officers saying they are letting all possibilities open about the motive for the attack.

The raid took place in the afternoon in a student area of ​​the city, where a witness saw the young man and young woman being stabbed by a black-clad assailant with a backpack at 4am.

Police were also called to another incident at around 5.30am on Tuesday, where a van crashed into three people who are now in hospital. Nottinghamshire Police said they were working with their counter-terrorism colleagues to establish exactly what happened and the motive behind the attack.

As reported by SKAI’s London correspondent Thanasis Gavos, it was confirmed at the same time that no other accomplice is wanted, although Sky News reported that two women near the scene of the first attack were taken by armed police to a patrol car in the early afternoon.

One student told the Daily Telegraph: “They were just unlucky. They were five minutes away from home and they were randomly stabbed by a guy.”

Lynn Haggitt, a passer-by walking to work, said she saw a van dragging two people away at around 5.30am near the Theater Royal. The driver “looked in the mirror, saw the police behind him and sped off. There were two people and it fell straight on them,” he told the British BBC network.

Another witness told the BBC that he saw a young man and a young woman being stabbed at around 4am. The man, who asked to remain anonymous, said he looked out the window and saw a “guy dressed in black, with a hood and a backpack, fighting with some people. It was a girl and a man or boy she was with – they looked quite young. They were shouting “help”! I wish I had shouted something from the window to annoy the assailant. I saw him stab first the lad and then the woman. It was consecutive stabbings, four or five times. The lad collapsed in the middle of the street”.

Nottingham Police have set up a dedicated phone line and are appealing for witnesses.

The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described these events as “shocking”, stating via Twitter that he is “informed about the developments” of the investigation, while he expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.