Former school principal arrested over rape and killing of six-year-old girl in China

A former deputy school principal in China’s Hebei province has been arrested on allegations of raping and killing a six-year-old girl, in the latest of a series of violent incidents against children by educators in China.

Yang Haijun was a deputy principal at a primary school in Laiyuan county, a four-hour drive west of Beijing.

The child's bloodstained, naked body with broken legs was found in the junction of Laiyuan and Wei county on Friday, seven days after she had gone missing, the Beijing News reported on Monday. Yang had led police to the body, the paper said citing police.

The girl was in her first year of schooling. Yang is married and in his forties, the paper said. 

News reports led to renewed reflection among netizens about whether the country has done enough to protect children from sex offenders. “’Principal’ has become a bad word these days," one person noted in a microblog post. "What has happened to our society?”