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| Saturday, 9 June, 2001, 13:21 GMT 14:21 UK Japan stunned by school massacre A shocked Japan is trying to find explanations for a brutal knife attack on a primary school on Friday, which left eight children dead and 15 pupils and teachers injured. For 10 minutes, a deranged killer cold-bloodedly went through the school stabbing children at random. Japanese media took the rare step of identifying the alleged killer as Mamoru Takuma, 37, who has a history mental illness. Saturday's newspapers are calling for measures to prevent mental patients from re-offending after they have been set free by the courts. ![]() Residents have been coming to the school gates to lay flowers, light incense and to pray for the souls of victims ![]() Mothers and children at the wake of a six-year-old victim. ![]() Twenty-four hours earlier paramedics had been desperately trying to save stabbing victims in the school grounds ![]() "I feel such anger," said principal Yoshio Yamane of Ikeda elementary school in the suburbs of Osaka ![]() A blue sheet is laid out by forensic officials between the gymnasium and classrooms of the school ![]() It may take the Japanese public a long time to recover from the shock of this brutal attack ![]() Alleged killer Mamoru Takuma is a former janitor at another school who was arrested in 1999 for lacing tea with tranquillisers ![]() The attack on Ikeda's seven- and eight-year olds is Japan's worst mass killing since the 1995 Tokyo's subway nerve gas attack |
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