Official arrested for raping 11 girls

ZHENGZHOU - Authorities in central China's Henan province on Tuesday formally approved the arrest of an official on suspicion of raping 11 underage girls.

Li Xingong, former deputy director of the general office of the Yongcheng city committee of the Communist Party of China, was previously detained over charges of raping adolescent school girls, the city's publicity department said in a statement on Sunday.

The department on Tuesday confirmed that Li had raped 11 girls, all under age 18, since the second half of 2011.

Henan police said they had also arrested another woman for allegedly helping Li pick, seduce and rape the school girls.

The case, which has triggered widespread public outrage on Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, is still under investigation.