New Delhi – An axe-wielding shopkeeper hacked a couple to death in northern India Thursday after they failed to pay a debt of 22 US cents (S$0.30), police said.

The middle-aged couple from the lowest Dalit caste in Uttar Pradesh state were on their way to work early Thursday when the grocery store owner asked them to pay their 15-rupee (S$0.30) debt.

“The shopkeeper demanded money but they pleaded to be able to pay it later. He became enraged and attacked them with an axe,” Arun Kumar, the investigating officer in Mainpuri district, told AFP.

The officer said the couple had bought goods from the shop last week with a promise to pay the 60-year-old owner within a few days.

“Their refusal to pay made him angry and he killed them,” Kumar said.

The owner was arrested soon after the incident and the murder weapon recovered, the officer said.

Hundreds of people are murdered in India each year over sudden provocations, often trivialities.

In 2014, almost 15 percent of the murders in New Delhi were unmotivated, according to police, and were mostly committed by non-criminals acting in a fit of rage.

More than 33,000 people were murdered in India in 2014, according to latest figures released by national criminal records bureau.

Tokyo – Japan is reviewing its mental health system to see how a man who was hospitalised after making violent threats came to be released after just 12 days and was later able to kill 19 people.

Satoshi Uematsu, 26, has admitted to carrying out the country’s worst mass killing in decades on Tuesday when he stabbed to death 19 people and wounded 26 others at a care centre for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, west of Tokyo.

A former employee of the centre, Uematsu left his job in February and was forcibly hospitalised by city authorities for evaluation after having made verbal and written threats to kill the mentally disabled, including those at the centre.

His release from hospital 12 days later, after it was decided he posed no threat, has raised questions about the decision to discharge him as well as his follow-up monitoring.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has now met with relevant officials and ordered a review into the mental healthcare system, top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters Thursday.

“The prime minister ordered the ministers to study necessary measures, such as strengthening safety at facilities and following up on those receiving compulsory mental treatment, as swiftly as possible and putting them into action,” Suga said.

Knife attack at Japan disabled care centre

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According to the health ministry, mentally ill people who threaten to harm themselves or others can be subjected to involuntary hospitalisation.

The government will review the timing of such admissions and discharges, follow-up care after they are released and the sharing of information with police, Jiji Press said.

“It is indispensable to examine the decision made by the city to discharge him from the hospital and the city’s handling of him after his discharge,” Japan’s top selling Yomiuri Shimbun daily said in an editorial Wednesday.

A report in The Japan Times newspaper said that after Uematsu’s discharge from hospital, the local government had planned to check on him but could not due to lack of staff.

Uematsu, who is now being questioned by prosecutors after turning himself in, reportedly said he wanted all disabled people to “disappear”.

He was hospitalised after delivering a letter to a member of parliament in which he threatened to kill hundreds of mentally disabled people.

He was discovered at the time to be suffering from paranoia as well as being dependent on cannabis, but was discharged 12 days later.

In a sign the care centre feared its former employee, officials in Kanagawa prefecture, which includes Sagamihara, confirmed that the facility in April set up 16 security cameras to watch out for Uematsu after he was discharged from the hospital.

Uematsu reportedly tied up five of the eight caregivers on duty before stabbing, slashing and otherwise injuring the 45 victims in a span of 50 minutes, Fuji News Network and other broadcasters said.

He targeted those with severe mental handicaps who could not communicate, Japan News Network reported, while the 19 dead, aged 18 to 70, suffered deep stab wounds to the upper body areas.

Manila – China is harbouring major drug lords who smuggle narcotics into the Philippines, the president said Thursday as he pressed on with his ruthless war on crime.

Rodrigo Duterte made the remarks even as the two countries continue to bicker over an international tribunal invalidating Beijing’s extensive claims to the South China Sea.

“Where is the big fish (in illegal drugs)? If you want them, go to China. Look for them there,” Duterte told soldiers and police during a visit to a military camp.

“I wanted to talk to the ambassador. That is how serious it is. Now, how do I fight this? We cannot just go there and just declare war,” he added.

He did not identify the alleged drug lords and a Chinese embassy spokesman could not be contacted for comment.

Duterte had previously asserted that most of the illegal drugs in the Philippines originated from China and that many Chinese had been arrested for smuggling drugs into the country.

But it was the first time he explicitly named China as the lair of those responsible for the trafficking.

Duterte has openly called for the killing of drug dealers and police figures show at least 316 such suspects have been slain since he took office on June 30. Police say the killings were in self-defence.

However local media agencies have posted even higher totals of deaths, with human rights advocates warning that these may be extra-judicial killings.

Last week the Chinese embassy in Manila issued a statement saying that Beijing was offering its support to Duterte’s drug crackdown.

“China has expressed explicitly to the new administration China’s willingness for effective cooperation in this regard, and would like to work out a specific plan of action with the Philippine side,” the embassy said.

Beijing is known to execute drug offenders and in recent years has put to death several Filipinos found guilty of smuggling narcotics into China.

Duterte, who was elected on May 9 after running on a fierce anti-drugs platform, reiterated during the visit that his special envoy, former president Fidel Ramos, would soon be going to China to discuss the dispute over the South China Sea.

Ties between the two countries have frayed after the UN-linked tribunal ruling, which was widely seen as a victory for the Philippines.

China previously offered to reopen talks with the Philippines on the issue but only if it disregarded the tribunal decision. The Philippines refused.

HONG KONG – Security was tightened at the South Korean consulate in Hong Kong on Thursday after media reports that a North Korean, possibly a student, had sought refuge there.

The North Korean is understood to be a member of a delegation that attended an academic competition at a Hong Kong university two weeks ago, the South China Morning Post said, citing government sources in the Chinese-ruled city.

A student who assisted at a maths olympiad held at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) told Reuters the organising committee of the competition asked for help on July 16 to track down an 18-year-old North Korean who had gone missing after the contest.

The student declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the issue. The organising committee declined comment. The university could not be reached for comment.

North and South Korea remain technically at war, and the reports of a possible defection are bound to exacerbate tensions.

Uniformed and plainclothes police were patrolling around the office building near the heart of Hong Kong’s financial centre where the South Korean consulate is located. Scores of reporters thronged the building.

Local government and consulate officials declined comment. “We are aware of the report,” a spokeswoman from the Hong Kong police told Reuters, declining to comment further.

A 360-degree tour of North Korea

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The 57th International Mathematical Olympiad was held at the HKUST on July 11-12. An all-male team of six took part from North Korea, according to the contest website. The team finished in 6th place.

South Korea’s foreign ministry declined comment on the media reports in Hong Kong. A ministry official said the South Korean government’s position was not to make any comments related to North Korean defectors, keeping in mind their safety and diplomatic relations with relevant countries.

China’s Foreign Ministry in Beijing also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tensions between North and South Korea have been particularly high since the North’s fourth nuclear test in January. After an announcement by the South in April that 13 workers at a restaurant in China run by the North had sought asylum, Pyongyang said they were abducted by agents from the South.

Hong Kong is ruled by China under a “one country, two systems” formula that accords the former British colony a degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China.

In the early 2000s, there was a rash of cases of North Koreans seeking asylum at foreign missions in China, mostly in Beijing, where in some cases they scaled embassy walls and forced their way in.

North Korean defectors mostly come from the poorest parts of the destitute state and usually flee over the traditionally quite porous border with China.

They then seek passage to the South via a third country, or previously via embassies and consulates in China, because Beijing sees them as economic refugees and forcibly repatriates them to North Korea.

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