By Stuart Biggs

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's National Police Agency is seeking a ban on double-edged knives, including daggers, after a stabbing spree left seven dead and 10 injured in a major Tokyo shopping district last month, Kyodo English News reported.

The agency will propose changes in the 1958 Firearm and Sword Control Law in the next session of parliament, Kyodo said, citing unidentified police officials. The bill will also strengthen measures against suspected stalkers, the report said.

The proposal comes after Tomohiro Kato, 25, drove into a crowd of pedestrians and began knifing people in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district on June 8, later telling police he was ``tired of the world,'' Kyodo reported at the time.

The Akihabara attack echoed one in March, when a 24-year- old man wanted for murder killed one person and injured seven in a stabbing spree at a shopping mall northeast of Tokyo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net.

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