Editorials

Neutralize child killers

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-14 07:52

Armed police and security personnel now protect children in primary schools and kindergartens across the nation after five cold-blooded killing sprees in a little less than two months sent shockwaves among the public.

This is the least that can be done to ensure the safety of vulnerable schoolchildren.

On May 12, the minister of public security stressed at a meeting that concerted efforts to crack down on such heinous killings were underway, even as he acknowledged that better measures were still needed to keep schools and kindergartens safe.

This first step will go some way to ease jittery nerves, of both students and their guardians. Yet, that will hardly solve the problem.

As long as angry, desperate killers resort to such wanton violence to give vent to their frustrations, it will be difficult to stop these random acts of carnage.

After all, the policemen cannot be omnipresent.

Severe penalties, may be necessary, but it is doubtful whether that will help in tackling the menace once and for all.

In Wednesday's stabbing spree in Nanzheng county, Shaanxi province, the villager who hacked to death seven kids and two adults simply walked home and committed suicide.

Tightening security at school campuses is one thing, but we have to also carefully analyze why so many are resorting to violence instead of seeking help from the concerned authorities to alleviate perceived grievances.

Government leaders, particularly those at the grassroots level, must painstakingly try to redress individual plaints and latent public anger before they manifest in such barbaric acts.

They should help in making society fair and equitable. Only then will we be able to root out such atrocities.

(China Daily 05/14/2010 page8)