In fresh knife attack, three people were killed and five others injured today in China when a man went on a stabbing spree, raising nationwide concerns over such copycat attacks by disgruntled people.
The 40-year-old assailant, surnamed He, randomly attacked passersby on the sidewalks in Shenzhen city, killing three people and injuring five others besides himself. He was later detained by police.
The injured were sent to a hospital, the municipal public security bureau said.
The assailant was also sent to the hospital for treatment, as he injured himself during the attack, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
An initial investigation showed that the suspect has a history of mental illness, the report said. He began to seek treatment for his illness in 1991 and since then he has been taking medications and undergoing further checkups.
The suspect, originally from the city of Jieyang in Guangdong, lived in a neighbourhood in the Luohu District.
According to the investigation, he left his apartment this morning while experiencing a mental disturbance. He rushed to a roadside restaurant, seized a knife and injured the restaurant's owner before attacking passersby. He also cut himself with the knife.
Security has been stepped up in Beijing and several cities as numerous such attacks were reported by disgruntled individuals who were socially and economically marginalised.
Several such attacks were reported in Beijing.
On Saturday, police arrested a 38-year-old man, suspected of stabbing five people to death and injuring three others in Henan province on Thursday.
An American woman was recently hacked to death along with a local at a commercial complex here. A local woman was brutally murdered and three others, including two children, were stabbed to death in the supermarket Carrefour.
In the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, a villager hacked to death two one-child policy officials and injured four at a family planning authority building for their refusal to register his fourth child.
An ex-convict in Beijing was detained by police on suspicion of killing a 2-year-old girl by throwing her to the ground.
