2013-03-06
Chinese police beside the stolen SUV found in a snow-covered field in Jilin province, March 5, 2013.
Imaginechina
A widely publicized case of a two-month-old baby reportedly strangled to death by a car thief in northeastern China has fueled concerns over child abuse and neglect in the country and triggered public anger over the role of the police in maintaining security.
Police in Jilin province confirmed late Tuesday that 48-year-old car thief Zhou Xijun had confessed to strangling the baby boy after stealing his father’s vehicle with the infant inside and burying his body in the snow.
According to the Jilin police department’s account on the Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, the baby’s body hasn’t yet been found.
Zhou told police he had stolen the Toyota SUV from outside a store on Monday, where the baby’s father had planned a quick visit, leaving the baby alone in the car with the engine running, official media
reported.
He said he only realized that the baby was on the back after he reached the highway, whereupon he strangled the boy before abandoning the jeep with the baby’s clothes near his hometown of
Gongzhuling city, Xinhua news agency said.
The baby’s disappearance sparked a massive city-wide hunt for the child, prompting tearful appeals on local radio from his mother, who said the family would drop all charges if the child was safely returned.
More than 8,000 police were rallied to look for the baby on the streets and in residential communities and parks, Xinhua said.
An officer who answered the phone on Wednesday at the Changchun municipal police department declined to give further details, however.
“I don’t really know because this isn’t my case,” the officer said. “But I can’t tell you anything on the phone, because it’s secret.”
Saddened by the news
Jilin resident Xu Yimin said many people were hugely saddened by the news.
“Of course anyone would feel heavy-hearted to hear that such a small baby had been harmed,” he said.
But he said many people were also speculating about the speed of the police response in the case. “It was a bit out of the ordinary,” he said.
Netizens posted mourning notices and hit out in grief and anger at the authorities after the news was announced.
“The case is cracked, the car is found, the child is dead,” wrote microblogger @just_passer in comments targeted at the police. “Yet the perpetrator turned himself in, so this had nothing to do with the 10,000 officers who were searching [for the baby].”
“You can launch nationwide searches for rights activists with a fearsome success rate; why is it that when you really should do something well, that actually is within your job description, you are
fumbling around in the dark, in such an unprofessional manner?”
On Sina Weibo, user @jueminshe blamed the government for creating a harsh and brutal society, in which execution was commonplace.
“Welcome to the world of devils and beasts,” the user wrote in comments translated by the ChinaSmack blog.
Another user commented via the same blog: “Mainland China not only doesn’t have safe milk that can raise a child, it doesn’t even have a safe social environment.”
Huge online reaction
Guangzhou-based rights lawyer Tang Jingling said the speed and scale of the police response was likely the result of the huge reaction to the case online.
“The authorities will take more notice of a case that becomes a hot topic online,” Tang said. “A lot of netizens were retweeting this as soon as the Changchun baby was stolen.”
Many netizens were stunned at the lack of logic behind the killing, wondering why, if stealing a car was his original aim, he would kill a baby.
Many called for a fuller disclosure of the case from police, suggesting other motivations, or even other people, may have been behind the attack.
Weibo user @riyaobanyuahanyuge cited earlier news reports which said that a man in his thirties about 1.8 meters ( 5 feet 9 inches) tall was seen getting onto a minibus near the abandoned car.
“So why was the man who turned himself in 48 years old? Is he a fall guy? And have they found the baby’s body yet or not?”
String of incidents
The case is the latest in a string of incidents in which children have died or been harmed from severe abuse or simple neglect.
Last November, authorities in the southwestern province of Guizhou took disciplinary action against eight officials and teachers in connection with the deaths of five children of migrant workers whose
bodies were found in a dumpster where they had apparently been living.
And in December 2011, the death of 10-year-old Xu Yueqi in a Xian traffic accident sparked violent clashes between angry local residents and police.
The incident came just weeks after the tragic death of Guangdong toddler Wang Yue in two consecutive hit-and-run accidents, after which several passers-by were caught on footage from a roadside camera ignoring the fatally injured toddler.
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA’s Mandarin service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
