NANZHENG, May 13 (Reuters) - A Chinese man hacked seven children to death along with the owner of a kindergarten and her mother after a heated argument about the school lease, neighbours and state media said.
There was no sign of premeditation, said villagers in north China’s Shaanxi province who witnessed the argument on Wednesday between the attacker Wu Huanming, 48, and the woman who ran the kindergarten, 50-year-old Wu Hongying.
"I saw him holding a knife up in his right hand, I ran out, there was shouting everywhere but nobody heard because it was raining," Li Yufen, a resident of rural Linchang, Nanzheng county, told Reuters, adding that the few neighbours who gathered had retreated back into their homes.
"The killer walked straight past me, he glanced at me but walked on and I closed the door and stayed inside."
Wu Huanming, the owner of the two-storey building with a walled, concrete courtyard, wanted the kindergarten to vacate the property when the lease ran out in April, Xinhua news agency said.
The kindergarten owner wanted to keep the school running until the summer.
Wu hacked five boys and two girls to death with a meat cleaver. He also killed Wu Hongying and her 80-year-old mother.
The killer then returned home and committed suicide, Xinhua said.
It was the sixth attack on schoolchildren in China since March, prompting calls for more security at schools and questions about the social tensions that underlie China’s rapid economic changes.
China’s Ministry of Public Security vowed urgent protective measures at schools and a "strike hard" campaign against attackers after a string of killings at schools and universities in recent years.
On Wednesday, local media said authorities had detained several persons suspected of harbouring intentions of school attacks, but didn’t elaborate on what evidence.
