Fang Jiantang waited outside the gates of the small kindergarten one Tuesday afternoon in August, posing as a parent among a group of 40 waiting for their children.
As the bells rang to announce the end of another school-day, he leapt into action, savagely attacking the three- and four-year-olds with a knife. The teachers who rushed to their pupils' defence were not spared, falling under the swishes of his blade.
In a blur of horrific violence, at least three children and one teacher were killed and dozens injured. After the attack, Mr. Fang (26) quietly left the kindergarten, crossed the street to a local police station, and turned himself in.
The attack in this picturesque township of Boshan, which lies an hour away from Zibo, China's ceramics capital, was at least the sixth this year on kindergartens and primary schools in China. Attacks in the provinces of Shaanxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and another in Shandong have left at least 27 students and teachers dead, and dozens injured.
After the fifth attack — in Shaanxi in May — the government ordered media to stop reporting the violence. Media reports, officials said, could have prompted copycat attacks. However, sociologists say the causes underlying the violence are far more complex, and have criticised the clampdown saying citizens need to be kept informed.
Mr. Fang's attack in early August, which has not been reported by the media in China, suggests the violence may not be at an end.
The causes of the violence have divided opinion among officials and sociologists. Initially, the attacks were cast as stray incidents of violence by people with mental illnesses. The repeated incidents, however, suggest deep-rooted causes. Some of the attackers were youth in their twenties with no history of mental illness, and who had been recently laid off. Their targets were carefully chosen — kindergartens in wealthy neighbourhoods. Attacking a school is a sure-fire way to get attention in a country where children are doted over, famous for being treated as “little emperors” having been brought up under the one-child policy.
In recent weeks, sociologists have suggested in articles that growing social divides and little avenues of recourse for those left out of the country's rapid march towards development are possible factors. The income gap between urban and rural areas is the widest in the People's Republic's six-decade history. Even Premier Wen Jiabao seemed to affirm this theory in a recent interview. “Apart from taking powerful security measures, we also need to solve the deeper reasons behind this issue, including resolving social tensions, reconciling disputes and enhancing mediation at the grass-roots level,” he said.
These divides are visible in Boshan. The Boshan Experimental Kindergarten sits hidden away in the township's wealthiest neighbourhood — an exclusive gated community called Golden Phoenix which would not be out of place in the affluent neighbourhoods of Beijing and Shanghai.
Golden Phoenix is one of the many signs of new wealth that have found their way here from the booming ceramics industry in nearby Zibo. Down the road is an expansive, newly-built shopping mall — with few shoppers visible one Saturday morning — and a recently-opened skyscraper that houses the Agricultural Bank of China.
Little is known about the motivations behind Mr. Fang's attack. Four residents who live near the school told The Hindu in interviews — they all declined to be named, as the government has told residents not speak of the case — Mr. Fang had been recently laid-off. The last year, they said, had generally been hard on Zibo's economy, which had been driven by demand from Europe.
Mr. Fang, residents said, lived with his parents in the Xiguan community, a cluster of apartments in the poorer part of town a 15-minute drive away from Golden Phoenix. Weeks before the attack, he had reportedly been in a car accident involving a local businessman thought to have connections with the local government.
His appeals for compensation at various levels of government, from local police to the district administration, went nowhere, residents said — a common grievance among ordinary Chinese. Their account could not be verified with the local government, which refused requests for information on the case.
One resident, who said she knew Mr. Fang's family, said he had no history of mental illness. He spent most of his time, she said, looking after an ill grandmother. The Boshan kindergarten is impossible to find for a first-time visitor, tucked away within the gated community. This suggested Mr. Fang had carefully planned the attack in advance.
Residents said in interviews last week Mr. Fang's case had quietly gone to trial and he had already been executed. “Why he went crazy and attacked those innocent children is still a mystery,” said a resident. “It was a scene from a nightmare. There was blood everywhere.”
The case has left the quiet town scarred. A notice outside the Boshan kindergarten, posted by the local police on August 21, says the school has now been closed down. “The parents were too frightened to send their children back,” said one resident.
