“Friday afternoon at 14.40 pm a violent man undertook a terrorist attack on innocent New Zealand residents in the New Lynn Countdown supermarket in Auckland,”

Six people were injured, three critically, in the attack that took place in a New Zealand supermarket, it is understood the man was a known violent extremist that was under close police monitoring.

The suspect was a Sri Lankan national who had arrived in New Zealand in 2011 and became a national security interest 2016, reasons for which are subject to court suppression orders.

New Zealand Prime minister said “He was a known threat and under constant surveillance, he was shot and killed in the supermarket by police within “roughly 60 seconds of the attack starting,”

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster said operations teams were “as close as they possibly could be (to the suspect) without compromising the surveillance” and that he was shot when he approached police with a knife from the store.

The man was being closely watched “as a consequence of concerns about his ideology,” and acted alone, Andrew Coster said.

Minister assured that authorities had utilized “every legal and surveillance power available to try and keep people safe from this individual” and that if he had committed a “criminal act that would’ve allowed him to be in prison, that’s where he would’ve been.”

“Unfortunately, he didn’t. That is why, instead, he was being monitored constantly and followed.”

The prime minister made a point to remind the public the attack “was carried out by an individual. Not a faith, not a culture, not an ethnicity, but an individual person who was gripped by ideology that is not supported here.”

There will be no change to New Zealand’s terror alert level, he said.