Claims that the number of mass murders in China was on the rise were yesterday denied by police officers who said society was safer than in the past.

"Our figures show mass killing cases were down 63 percent last year compared to 2005," said deputy director of the criminal investigation bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, Yu Xinmin. "People feel such cases are on the rise because the media nowadays carry more reports."

Chinese media have reported at least four such cases in the past three months and this has resulted in rising concerns about public security.

On December 28, six people were bludgeoned to death in an apartment in Foshan in South China's Guangdong Province.

On December 11, a criminal court judge, Chen Yiming, and three of his family were killed in their home in Northwest China's Gansu Province.

On November 27, a county chief in Southwest China's Guizhou Province, Wen Jiangang, was found dead in his home along with his wife, son, mother-in-law, elder sister and a babysitter.

On November 6, a restaurant owner and three of his relatives were killed in Dongguan in Guangdong Province.

Three of these cases have been solved and one is under investigation.

A man named Qiu Xinghua was executed at the end of the year for murdering 10 people in a temple near his home in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province in July.

Even though these mass killings are gruesome, Yu said the public shouldn't be overly concerned as they accounted for a very small percentage of Chinese criminal cases.

Li Meijin, a professor with Chinese People's Public Security University, agreed with Yu. "In a big country such as China 10 mass murders a year is comparatively low."

In general police pay special attention to a particular type of crime when it accounts for more than 20 percent of the total, she said.

Ministry figures released yesterday show police handled 4.65 million criminal cases last year. This is almost the same as 2005. The figures were 4.39 million in 2003, 4.71 million in 2004 and 4.64 million in 2005.

"China maintained a safe and stable society last year," said ministry spokesman Wu Heping. Violent crimes including murder, arson, rape and kidnapping fell by 4 percent because of the police crackdown.

Also noticeable was the 1.6 percent drop in theft and robbery cases. These accounted for 80 percent of the total criminal cases. Gambling and drug trafficking cases fell by around 16 percent. The number of adolescent suspects dropped by 5.5 percent to 679,000.

But Wu said economic crimes showed a steady rise last year. Figures indicate that 68,000 such crimes were recorded in 2004 and 72,000 in 2005.

However, the ministry is happy that police solved 91.4 percent of the murder cases last year, Wu said. This is higher than the 63 percent in the US and 87 percent in Britain.

Wu said police across the country were encouraged to videotape all murder case interrogations to prevent abuse of suspects.

(Source: China Daily February 7, 2007)