Three kindergarten students were killed and 14 others, including a teacher, injured in an arson attack in a classroom in central China's Henan Province yesterday morning.

 

The gruesome incident occurred at about 9 AM at a kindergarten in Shiguan Village, Gongyi City.

 

A 19-year-old villager, Bai Ningyang, reportedly broke into a classroom, locked the door and started a fire with gasoline, police said. 21 children and their teacher were in the classroom at the time.

 

Two children, aged five, died on the spot. Another died later in hospital. The injured, some in critical condition, are being treated at local hospitals.

 

The kindergarten has been closed, according to police.

 

The arsonist escaped from the scene and is at large, police said, adding that his motive is under investigation.

 

Media reports say that revenge was the motive. Bai's advances were reportedly spurned by one of the teachers at the kindergarten. But these reports have not been confirmed by local police authorities.

 

Local police have offered a 20,000-yuan reward for Bai's capture. The city has mobilized 800 police officers to hunt him down.

 

In March, the authorities announced that they would start posting police at schools throughout the country following a series of knife attacks on children, hostage-takings and fires.

 

Most of the attacks were blamed on personal grudges or people with psychiatric problems.

 

In October last year, a man opened fire with six homemade guns at a school yard in east China's Anhui Province as students did their morning exercises, wounding 16 children and two adults.

 

In October 2004, a five-year-old boy and his teacher were killed at Beixin Kindergarten in eastern Beijing.

 

Two months earlier, a janitor wielding a kitchen knife stabbed 15 children and at least two teachers at a kindergarten in Beijing, killing one child.

 

(China Daily May 9, 2006)