The killer grabbed the child from behind as she cycled to a metro station in Taipei with her mother to meet relatives on Monday, and beheaded the child with a kitchen knife, police said. 
 
 The suspect pushed away the mother of the girl who had rushed forward to save her daughter, while seven bystanders were also unable to stop the man, who was arrested at the scene, police added. 
 
 The girl has been identified only by the surname Liu, while local media have referred to her by her family nickname "little light bulb". 
 
 Police said the suspect, a 33-year-old man surnamed Wang, had been arrested in the past for drug related crimes and had twice sought medical treatment for mental illness after physical altercations with his family. 
 
 The case, the second child killing in Taipei in less than a year, has sparked widespread public anger and criticism of calls to abolish the death penalty. 
 
 Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions are reserved for serious crimes including aggravated murder and kidnapping, but the political elite is divided over whether or not to retain it. 
 
 Following the attack, parliament said it would bring forward to Thursday a review of a bill that would ensure those convicted of killing children under 12 were given the death penalty, or at least a life sentence in the case of severe mental illness. 
 
 "I am deeply saddened by the case ... (the suspect) should be sentenced to death in the case of a stranger killing a child," said lawmaker Wang Yu-min, who proposed the bill. 
 
 Children's welfare group the White Rose Social Care Association is planning to hold a mass rally in Taipei on April 9 to push for enforcement of capital punishment in the wake of the crime. 
 
 "This kind of random killing shows that Taiwan cannot afford to abolish the death penalty," said Eva Liang, chairwoman of the association. 
 
 The girl's mother, however, urged the public not to discuss the issue of capital punishment to allow the family time to grieve. 
 
 "If you are concerned about us or have sympathy, please respect us ... I don't wish to see such discussions at the time being," she told reporters outside a funeral home, where President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Chang San-cheng came to pay their respects. 
 
 She also asked people not to circulate photos of the girl's body. 
 
 Television footage on Monday showed dozens of angry people gathered outside a police station in Taipei where the suspect was being held. 
 
 Some attacked the suspect as he was being transferred to the prosecutor's office for questioning, as he pleaded with them to "stop beating". 
 
 Others came to lay flowers and toys at the spot where the girl was killed near an elementary school. Her family held a religious ceremony for her there. 
 
 Local media said the case may have triggered copycat attacks as two more violent incidents were reported Tuesday. 
 
 In the first case, a knife-wielding man assaulted a metro policeman while he was patrolling a carriage around noon. He was hospitalised for injuries to his head and back, according to the Taipei City police department. 
 
 The policeman immediately pulled the attacker out of the carriage for fear that he could hurt passengers. The man was overpowered by security in the metro station and was arrested at the scene, police said, adding that he claimed he "hates the police." 
 
 In New Taipei city, a janitor was injured after being attacked by a man with a small saw. The man tried to flee before he was nabbed near the scene, local police said. ||||| By Hsu Sheng-lun and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA 
 
 A four-year-old girl was yesterday decapitated in an apparently random attack in Taipei in full view of her mother, police said. 
 
 An unemployed man, identified as Wang Ching-yu (王景玉), has been detained in connection with the gruesome killing. 
 
 The attack occurred at about 11am when the girl, surnamed Liu (劉), and her mother were on their way to an MRT rail station in northern Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) to meet the girl’s grandfather and two of her siblings for lunch. 
 
 Liu was riding a bicycle on Huanshan Road Sec 1, when she was attacked, Taipei City Police Department Neihu Precinct investigation unit head Yang Kun-ming (楊坤明) said, adding that the attacker grabbed the girl from behind and decapitated her with a cleaver. 
 
 Passersby and area residents subdued the attacker and called the police, who arrested the suspect upon arriving at the scene, Yang said, adding that police were still trying to determine the motive. 
 
 Liu’s mother told reporters that her daughter, nicknamed Xiao Deng Pao (小燈泡, little lightbulb), was riding a bicycle about a meter ahead of her when the bicycle got stuck and could not climb onto a sidewalk. 
 
 When the attacker approached the girl, her mother said she thought he was going to help her pick up her bicycle, but instead he began attacking her. 
 
 She said she was still closing the distance between her and her daughter when the man started attacking Liu, and she was unable to pull him away from her daughter due to his strength. 
 
 The girl’s mother said that when area residents who heard her screams for help rushed to the scene, she saw that her daughter had been decapitated. 
 
 “I never thought this society was so dangerous,” the mother said, expressing the hope that her daughter would be the last victim of a random attack. 
 
 “Xiao Deng Pao told me that she missed her brother and sister, so she wanted to pick them up,” her tearful mother said. “I am very sad. I will never see her again, and she will never see her brother and sister again.” 
 
 The girl’s mother called on the government for measures to guarantee the nation’s working mothers’ peace of mind, saying: “The government said it is focusing on families and education, so how could this happen?” 
 
 The girl’s parents and grandparents were later seen kneeling next to her body, weeping. 
 
 “Society is sick,” her grandmother said. 
 
 An angry mob attempted to assault Wang yesterday afternoon when he was escorted by police out of the Neihu Precinct to board a vehicle to take him for further questioning, with some in the mob shouting: “Do you have no conscience?” 
 
 Curses and yells of “Kill him” from the mob descended into scuffles and police were eventually forced to return him to the station. 
 
 According to police, Wang had previously been treated at a psychiatric hospital in the city. 
 
 Wang was quoted by police as saying that he did not know the victim, and that he had purchased the knife earlier in the morning. 
 
 Records showed that Wang, 33, had sought treatment at Taipei City Hospital’s Songde Branch, a public psychiatric hospital, but he does not have a government-issued disability card, police said. 
 
 The hospital confirmed that Wang had sought treatment there once in 2014, but said that does not prove he has a mental illness. At the time, he had admitted to using narcotics, but a drug test returned negative, the hospital said. ||||| A four-year-old Taiwanese girl was beheaded by a man in Taipei’s Neihu district on Monday morning, local media reported. 
 
 The Central News Agency reported that police are questioning an unemployed 33-year-old man who has a record of drug-related crimes. 
 
 Policeman severely injured after metro stabbing, cleaner hurt in two new attacks in Taiwan 
 
 The report said that the suspect, surnamed Wang, cut off the head of the girl in Neihu, eastern Taipei, with a kitchen knife at about 11am. 
 
 Television footage showed an angry crowd gathered outside a local police station, pushing and shoving in a bid to punch the bloodstained suspect when police tried to escort him out of the station to the police precinct. He was later brought back to the police station. 
 
 Watch: Angry Taiwan mob attacks man suspected of beheading four-year-old girl 
 
 The case’s chief investigator said officers were still trying to find out whether the suspect particularly targeted the child and why. 
 
 The girl’s mother told TVBS that she was walking about a metre behind her daughter, who was riding a bicycle, as they headed to a metro station to pick up the girl’s grandfather, sister and brother. 
 
 ‘Mentally unstable’ Taiwanese suspect who beheaded girl, 4, had history of violence: reports 
 
 When the suspect came close to her daughter, she thought he was going to help her ride up a hill, but what he did afterwards shocked and mortified her, the mother said. 
 
 The suspect was eventually tackled to the ground by passers-by before police arrived. 
 
 Eastern Broadcasting quoted the suspect’s father as saying that the man, his only son, was mentally unstable and had once been treated in hospital but was not registered as retarded by the government. 
 
 Police said he was unemployed and lived on his parents’ income. 
 
 “Little Lantern (the girl’s nickname) said she wanted to pick up her brother and sister, but now she cannot see them any more,” said the mother, who was visibly trying to keep her composure. 
 
 She said she had quit her job to care for her children, but she never expected society to be so dangerous for them. 
 
 It was a problem that could not be easily resolved simply by enacting tougher laws, she said, adding that the government must do something to keep dangerous people from the streets. 
 
 “I hope our children and grandchildren will never see this happen ever again,” she said. 
 
 It felt 'nice': What Taipei subway killer told police after stabbing spree 
 
 A witness who helped tackle the suspect told SET News that he and two colleagues rushed to the scene after they heard the mother crying for help. But it was too late when they arrived. 
 
 The girl’s grandmother tearfully told ETTV that she could not believe such a horrible thing had happened to her cute “Little Lantern”. 
 
 Surveillance camera footage, acquired by TVBS, from outside a restaurant showed that before the incident happened, the suspect was pacing back and forth on the street looking agitated. 
 
 The report claimed that the suspect told police during questioning that he had bought the kitchen knife at a store earlier in the morning and returned home. 
 
 He then left his house again to look for a target, preferably a little girl, the report said.
– A nearly unthinkable killing unfolded on the streets of Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday, when a man beheaded a 4-year-old girl in full view of her mother. It appears to have been a random attack, and the 33-year-old suspect has a history of mental issues, reports the Taipei Times. The victim has been identified only by her surname, Liu, and by her nickname, "Little Lightbulb," or "Little Lantern." She and her mom were on their way to a subway station to meet her grandfather and two siblings for lunch when the attack occurred. The girl was on a bike ahead of her mother, and she was struggling to get up on the sidewalk when the man approached her. The girl's mother assumed he was going to help, but then he began attacking the girl with a cleaver. The mother and bystanders ran to the spot but were unable to pull him away in time. “I never thought this society was so dangerous,” said the girl's mother. "I will never see her again, and she will never see her brother and sister again.” Police arrested Wang Ching-yu, who had previously sought treatment for mental illness after fights with his family and has drug-related arrests on his record, reports AFP. His father describes the unemployed man as mentally unstable, reports the South China Morning Post. A mob of people confronted Wang as police were escorting him from a local precinct with shouts of "kill him," forcing officers to return him inside. In the wake of the attack, lawmakers promised to consider legislation ensuring the death penalty for those who kill children, or at least life in prison if mental illness is involved.