BEIJING: Fifteen
people were killed in China on the night of the Lunar New Year in two family
tragedies, after one man started a fire and another went on a knife rampage. As
people celebrated to welcome in the Year of the Pig Monday night, a man
surnamed Lu set fire to the home of his brother in the northern province of
Shaanxi, killing seven, according to police in the town of Baoji.

The brother, his
wife, their fathers and their three children died in the blaze, police said on
the Twitter-like Weibo platform. A few hours after the incident police arrested
the suspect, who had just tried to kill himself. During the same night, a man
surnamed Guo, who suspected his wife of adultery, stabbed eight people to death
and injured seven in a village in the northwest province of Gansu, according to
police in the commune of Baiyin.

The man, aged 49,
has been arrested. The identities of the victims have not been released. Knife
attacks are common in China, where the carrying of firearms is strictly
regulated. Violent crime has been on the rise as the economy has boomed in
recent decades and the gap between rich and poor has widened rapidly. Studies
have also described a rise in the prevalence of mental disorders, some of them
linked to stress as the pace of life becomes faster and support systems
wither._ AFP