The incident began just after 4.30pm and centred on the tube station, where a number of passengers began to flee believing that they had heard gunshots.

 

Nine people were injured as hundreds ran to escape what they believed to be an attack on Friday evening, only to find it was a false alarm. The reaction was a sign of just how jittery many have become at the end of a year in which the capital and Manchester have been targeted by five terrorist attacks.

 

British Transport Police issued a CCTV appeal for information about two men believed to be involved in a fight in Oxford Circus tube station on Friday afternoon as part of their inquiries into the cause of the panic.