School attacks shed light on inequality
- Source: Global Times
- [04:36 May 06 2010]
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A policeman supervises students as they leave their primary school Wednesday in Qingdao, Shandong Province. Photo: IC
By Song Shengxia
Following a recent string of violent attacks on schoolchildren across the country, police in China's southeastern Jiangsu Province have detained two men on charges of sending letters and making online posts threatening school safety, the Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.
A 37-year-old man in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, surnamed Liu, was arrested Sunday for sending a letter to the headmaster of Chunxing Primary School, threatening to kill schoolchildren if the school didn't remit 100,000 yuan ($14,650) to him.
"If you don't want the Nanping tragedy to occur again, I would like to talk to you… Since I am too poor, I hope the school can help me out," Liu said in his letter, dated April 26.
Liu, originally from Anhui Province, wanted to extort money and use it for gambling, he told police after he was arrested.
In a separate case, a 20-year-old man in the same city, surnamed Hu, made a post on a local online forum, threatening to "kill children for fun."
He admitted that he sent the post for fun and wanted to attract attention.
The arrests came after five separate incidents around the country of individual men at-tacking children in or around schools since March.
The latest attack occurred Friday when a man in Weifang, Shandong Province, injured five students with a hammer before setting fire to himself with gasoline. The man, Wang Yonglai, died at the scene.
