Knife attacker kills sleeping students in Chinese school

A MAN, suspected to be a disgruntled former pupil, broke into a Chinese school dormitory and stabbed to death up to nine boys as they slept.

It was the deadliest of a series of knife attacks at Chinese schools in recent months.

Police were hunting for the man following last night’s attack in Ruzhou, a city of 920,000 people 450 miles south-west of Beijing.

He broke into the dormitory and “chopped eight people to death,” the official Xinhua News Agency said. Another state-run outlet, the China News Service, put the death toll at nine.

The China News Service said the attacker might have been a former student who had been expelled.

It cited a survivor as saying that during the attack, the man with the knife said, “Don’t blame me.”

It was the fourth knife attack reported at a Chinese school or day care centre in as many months.

The earlier assaults left one child dead and a total of 42 people injured.

The spate of violence prompted the government of president Hu Jintao to issue a nationwide order for schools to hire guards and tighten security.

The reason for the surge in knife attacks is not clear. They have taken place throughout China and involve attackers from different backgrounds.

In the only other fatal case until this week, an attacker at a Beijing kindergarten was reported to be an employee of the school with a history of mental illness.

However, China’s cities and towns seethe with grudges and personal feuds amid wrenching economic and social change.

Fatal bombings, mass poisonings and other attacks are reported frequently, usually blamed on people trying to hurt business rivals or seeking revenge in disputes.

A man who slashed 25 children with a kitchen knife at school in eastern China was executed this week. Though no one was killed in the attack, a court ruled that the penalty was justified because the violence was “especially cruel.”

Police said that attacker had a grudge against the parent of a student.

In August, a man killed a student and slashed 14 children and three teachers in Beijing.

In September, a man armed with a knife, petrol and explosives broke into a day-care centre in the eastern city of Suzhou and slashed 28 children.