School maintenance man held after 20 primary pupils wounded in Beijing hammer attack
- Three pupils suffer serious injuries, but their lives are not thought to be at risk
- Former repair worker whose contract had expired detained after attack on young children in Chinese capital’s Xicheng district
Twenty pupils at a Beijing primary school were wounded on Tuesday in a hammer attack that police said had left three seriously injured, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Police in the Xicheng district of the city said in a statement on Weibo that they had detained a 49-year-old male suspect surnamed Jia, who was a former repair worker at the school.
Jia was a migrant worker from Heilongjiang province whose contract had ended at the start of the year, and police suspect that the attack was motivated by anger at having his employment terminated.
Another former maintenance worker at the school surnamed Liang suggested that the suspect was angry because he had been let go at the end of his probation period.
The attack happened at Xuanwu Normal Experimental Affiliated Number One Primary School just after 11.15am.