Suspect held in nursery poisoning case

The owner of a nursery school has been detained on suspicion that he added rat poison to lunches at a rival pre-school in south-eastern China, which put 70 young children and two teachers in hospital, police said today.

A 30-year-old man was detained by police yesterday at his home near Huangpo, a town in Guangdong province where the students and teachers fell ill on Monday, said a police officer in the nearby city of Zhanjiang.

Police said the man confessed to the poisoning, the latest in a string of attacks blamed on business rivalries or people with grudges.

The children and teachers are still in hospital but appear to be recovering, said doctors at Wuchuan City People’s Hospital and Nanyou Hospital, where the 72 are being treated.

Police said the suspect’s apparent motive was jealousy because his own school had attracted few students and was failing, while the Anle Kindergarten in Huangpo was thriving.

Investigators believe he sneaked over a school wall on Sunday night, entered the kitchen and added the powdered rat poison to salt used for cooking.

The following day, the students and teachers vomited and went into spasms after eating corn porridge served as school lunch.

The same type of rat poison, called Dushuqiang, killed at least 38 people two months ago in the eastern city of Nanjing, when a snack shop owner poisoned the food of a rival shop.

Dushuqiang has been banned for sale in China since the mid-1990s but remains widely available from illegal producers in rural areas.

In July, a noodle shop owner in southern China was arrested on charges that he poisoned customers at a rival shop by putting rat poison in soup sold there, sickening 57 people.