A Chinese student killed eight people in a stabbing rampage because he was angry at failing an exam and not being paid enough as an intern, according to Chinese police.
The 21-year-old was arrested at the scene of the mass stabbing, the Wuxi Vocational College of Arts and Technology in Yixing city, Jiangsu province in eastern China. Police said he had confessed to the attack that took place on Saturday evening.
According to early investigations, the suspect vented his frustrations “after failing an exam and not receiving his graduation certificate, as well as being dissatisfied with his internship compensation”, the Yixing Public Security Bureau said.
On Sunday a man laid a bouquet of chrysanthemums among the floral tributes outside the school gates.
“They were just 18, 19-year-old kids. It’s such a pity and so sad,” said the man, who gave his surname as Duan.
“We really have to give young people better psychological guidance,” he added.
The stabbings happened just a few days after China’s deadliest mass attack in 10 years – the ramming of an SUV into a crowd outside a sports facility in Zhuhai city in the south. That attack on Monday night killed 35 people and injured 43 others. On Saturday, a 62-year-old man was charged in connection with the incident.
In recent years there have been several high-profile mass attacks in China. Civilians are not allowed to own guns in the country and individuals have carried out mass stabbings, arson attacks or ploughed vehicles into people at random to express grievances with society or authorities.
The latest two attacks prompted a rare public discussion on social media about mental health, albeit heavily censored.
Individuals who carry out mass attacks in China often have mental health issues and believe they have been treated unfairly with “no other way to be heard”, Qu Weiguo, a professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, posted on Weibo.
He wrote: “It is important to establish a social safety net and a psychological counselling mechanism, but in order to minimise such cases, the most effective way is to open public channels that can monitor and expose the use of power.”
Mr Qu’s post was later removed by censors.