The leader of the South Korean opposition, Lee Jae-myung, was stabbed in the neck on Tuesday while visiting the port city of Busan in the south. According to Yonhap news agency, the incident happened while Democratic Party leader Lee was visiting a possible location for a new airport.

Soon after the attack, a number of unsettling videos appeared online that allegedly showed the attacker stabbing him in the neck. According to South Korean media, witnesses stated that the man who attacked Lee Jae-myung used a weapon resembling a knife. The assailant wearing a paper crown with Lee’s name on it —described as a man in his 50s or 60s—was came up to him pretending to be asking for an autograph. Yonhap confirmed that the man was promptly taken into custody after being subdued.

South Korean news outlet Chosun Ilbo reported that as per Busan’s police statement, Lee suffered a one-centimetre laceration on his neck with minor bleeding and he is in conscious state.

According to the Yonhap news agency, Lee was being carried into an ambulance by emergency personnel. Later, a helicopter took him to the hospital. He was reportedly bleeding but conscious when he was brought to the Pusan National University Hospital, according to the agency.

According to the Yonhap news agency, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol denounced the attack and called it intolerable.

Kwon Chil-seung, an MP from Lee’s Democratic Party, told to reporters, “This is an act of terror against Lee and a serious threat to democracy that should never occur under any circumstances”.

Once the footage of the incident was broadcasted on YTN television, it had also been viral on social media.