Hainan province teacher, city official arrested over sex assault of six girls
Year-six classmates found groggy at hotels in Hainan's Wanning and Haikou cities after being abducted before school and held for two days
A schoolmaster and a government official in Hainan province have been arrested in connection with the sexual assault of six primary school girls, local authorities said yesterday.
The year-six classmates at Wanning Houlang primary school were receiving one-on-one counselling and assisting in the police investigation.
Provincial authorities said they had been sexually molested but not raped. However, a police officer involved in the case said earlier that at least some of the girls had been raped.
The incident, reported by the Beijing-based Legal Daily, triggered national outcry, with calls for those responsible to be severely punished. The two suspects are set to stand trial, and the schoolmaster was removed from his post yesterday by Wanning city education authorities.
The girls were reported missing after failing to show up for school on Wednesday. The school and parents launched a search, and four girls were found in Haikou , more than 160 kilometres away from their hometown, late on Thursday . Two others were found in Wanning on Friday morning.
The Legal Daily said one girl was found at a relative's home in Haikou, three at an apartment in Haikou's Chengxi township, and the other two at a hotel in Wanning's Changfeng township.
A victim's father told the South China Morning Post that the girls were taken by a Wanning government official and the principal of another primary school in Wanning.