Students at Peking and Tsinghua universities have logged on to school Internet forums to express fear, outrage and their theories about Tuesday's back-to-back cafeteria explosions. 'I was afraid in my heart that something else would happen,' wrote a student who was eating lunch during the Peking University explosion. 'That was because the blast came from the [cafeteria] north door. When I went out a lot of people were standing in the open space looking at it. They wouldn't go any closer!' Another Peking University commentator said: 'It makes one assume this is a terrorist attack.' Peking University students speculated the attacks were linked to next week's National People's Congress, but there is no evidence to support this other than the timing. Police have not identified a suspect or a motive for the blasts. After the Tsinghua Web site, news.tsinghua.edu.cn, posted its first news item on Tuesday, it received 15,380 hits, and news articles as of yesterday had generated 1,500 comments, said the university news centre's chief manager, surnamed Xue. About 80 per cent of the commentators expressed sympathy for the nine people injured in the two explosions and advised students to continue studying without fear, Mr Xue said. Web masters took out a few sensitive comments, Mr Xue, said. A Peking University student assistant to the school's bulletin board - bbs.pku.edu.cn - said it welcomed any kind of comments and rarely censored anyone. Speculation about terrorism or links to the NPC were acceptable because they were not official views, the assistant said. 'Everyone's reaction is different. It's supposed to be active, to let people debate a bit.'
