Acid attacker vandalizes pricey cars in Beijing
- Source: Global Times
- [01:21 August 12 2010]
- Comments
By Yan Shuang
About 100 cars parked along upscale Qingnian Lu in Beijing were burned by sulfuric acid Wednesday morning.
The destruction was intentional, police said, with many residents of the nearby compound speculating that the vandal was driven by resentment against the rich.
Residents of the approximate 30,000 yuan ($4,427)-a-square meter Runfeng Shuishang and Huafang Yicheng compounds told reporters they were heartbroken.
The most seriously damaged car was a red Mazda with scars running front to back. The most expensive was a Volkswagen Phaeton worth about 2 million yuan ($295,164), reports said.
The pattern of paint damage suggested the saboteur had poured a bottle of sulfuric acid on the vehicles while walking past, residents surmised.
An Infiniti owner surnamed Zhang felt "totally depressed" when he saw the scars on his doors and hood. "I didn't even get the time to put on my license plate as I just bought it four days ago," he told the Legal Mirror reporter, adding he was told it would cost 30,000 yuan to fix.
"I got here 7 am, and saw these cars in this mess," said a sanitation worker surnamed Mao.
A worker at the Runfeng compound said, "It could possibly be someone who envies and hates rich people and tried to pass their anger onto their cars.
Pingfang branch police said they were looking into the case. They have told car owners to register and report the damage.
In December 2006, a man who reportedly envied the rich was arrested and convicted of hammering nails into more than 100 cars over four years in Dongcheng district.
China's Gini co-efficient - a common measure of income inequality - is approaching 0.5, far above the "alarm level" of 0.4 that indicates vulnerability to social unrest, according to official statistics quoted in the Asian Tribune.
Urban incomes are now more than 3.2 times those of rural areas, up from 2.5 times in 1978, reported the Bangkok-based paper affiliated to the World Institute for Asian Studies.
Chen Jing contributed to this story
