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Nun kills colleague, commits suicide

By Xie Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-16 07:37

A nun from the Linggu temple in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, committed suicide after killing her companion during the pair's visit to Hsinchu county in Taiwan, the island-based United Evening News reported on Wednesday.

Interviewed by China Daily yesterday, the Nanjing government confirmed the deaths of 34-year-old Jingran, the abbot of the Linggu temple, and 54-year-old Chunru.

An official surnamed Wang from the Nanjing Buddhism Association said he had known Jingran for a long time and thought she was "a very nice person".

He said he never expected her to be murdered.

Taiwan media reported that Jingran was found dead on Wednesday morning in a hotel in Taiwan, and her roommate, Chunru, had disappeared.

As people searched for Chunru, she jumped to her death from the 12th floor of the hotel. Taiwan police believe Chunru committed suicide after killing Jingran.

They said a note was found in the hotel room, which read: "Please tell the police to arrest me, so I can be at peace."

"There was a lot of blood in the room, and Jingran's face had been severely beaten with the base of a lamp," the newspaper reported.

Jingran and Chunru arrived in Taiwan on Monday to attend a Buddhism seminar and were scheduled to return to the mainland tomorrow, their traveling companions said

The two nuns are believed to have quarreled after Jingran criticized Chunru for losing her passport on Tuesday.

Taiwan police said yesterday that they had finished collecting evidence and will wait for the results of the postmortems on the two nuns.

(China Daily 01/16/2009 page4)