Nursery gatekeeper slashes 15 children

A SCHOOL employee with a history of schizophrenia slashed 15 students and three teachers with a kitchen knife yesterday at a Beijing kindergarten, killing one child and leaving terrified classmates covered in blood.

Two children suffered serious injuries in the attack at the school, police said. The wounded were taken to a local hospital in the affluent neighbourhood less than a half mile from the compound in central Beijing where China’s leaders work.

The attack is a blow to the communist leadership’s effort to promote an image of order in the capital amid rising fears of crime and violence.