Schoolboys arrested over alleged murder of classmate

Police in Handan, Hebei Province, have arrested three schoolboys in a case involving a junior high school student allegedly killed and buried by his classmates.

The 13-year-old Xiao Guang (a pseudonym) is alleged to have been killed by three middle school students after school. All are from the same class at a school in Handan's Feixiang District. It is alleged he had been subjected to their bullying on campus for a long time.

The local village committee confirmed the authenticity of online information and said that the three had been arrested, the Jinan Times reported on Wednesday.

According to the father of the boy, surnamed Wang, he had told his grandmother at around 1pm on that day that he was going out with his classmates. When he called his son at around 5pm, he found his phone was turned off. He then started a search with other family members.

They searched until around 10pm, but then called the police.

Through surveillance footage, the police found there were three male students along with Xiao Guang. When questioned by police later, all three denied having seen him.

"At that moment, I already had a bad feeling that something had happened," said Wang, who then went to a mobile business hall to replace his son's lost SIM card and check WeChat records.

He discovered that his son had previously transferred several hundred yuan to one of the students on WeChat and he informed the police about this.

Based on evidence from surveillance footage and the transfer record, the three students are said to have confessed to the police that Xiao Guang was buried in an abandoned greenhouse.

Wang said his son had previously expressed an unwillingness to go to school. "We thought he was just being playful and didn't take it seriously, but later we found out he was being bullied at school," he said.