Local police said on Tuesday that a sixth-grader might have been behind an incident at a primary school in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where more than 60 students fell ill, apparently due to poisoning.

The boy surnamed Yang, who just turned 14, was a student at a boarding school in Dengjia Village, Guanyang County. He was at odds with a classmate, surnamed Qing, and had apparently sworn to poison him.

He carried three kinds of pesticide to school on June 30 in mineral water bottles. Knowing that Qing got up early in the morning, he poured the pesticide into the school's storage tank that evening.

However, it seems that Qing wasn't the only early riser at the school. More than 60 students were reported to have stomachaches, headaches and nausea after drinking from a fountain in the school's cafeteria on the morning of last Tuesday. Thirty-four were seriously hurt and had to be hospitalized. All are now out of danger.

Yang, whose birthday was July 3, committed the crime just before he turned 14, making him exempt from legal punishment. But local police ordered his caretakers to be stricter with him.

Chinese law stipulates that those aged below 14 are exempt from penal responsibility, while penalties for those aged 14 to 18 should be mitigated.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2008)