Professor held after student's death in blast

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Shanghai Daily, May 30, 2016
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An academic has been detained by police in relation to a wax factory explosion in Qingpu District that killed a graduate student he supervised and two other people last Monday, the East China University of Science and Technology confirmed yesterday.

The district government said last Tuesday that the blast caused the collapse of nearly 200 square meters of steel paneling, but did not specify the cause. The student, Li Peng, was a second-year master's student of chemical engineering.

Zhang Jianyu, an associate professor at the university's School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, is a shareholder of Shanghai Joule Wax Company where the blast took place, according to the Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce.

Zhang established the company in 2007 and was its legal representative until June 30 last year.

However, the university, which does not allow its staff to own or work for businesses, said it was not aware of the academic's involvement in a private enterprise.

The current legal representative of the company is Zhang's brother Zhang Jianjun, according to a report in the Beijing News.

Police in Qingpu District refused to answer Shanghai Daily's questions, saying that the government would make a public announcement about Zhang's detention.

Last Tuesday, Li's sister stated in a scathing attack on weibo.com, China's Twitter counterpart, that Zhang was a "capitalist and a vampire."

She added: "(Zhang) often forced (Li) to do lab work for his private companies.

"He forced him to work for him in a factory in Zhejiang Province for over a month last summer with no wages. "He prohibited my brother from publishing his research paper, hoping to appropriate the research to make a business profit."

She alleged that her brother was killed during a "dangerous experiment" at the wax factory, adding that Zhang failed to take the necessary safety precautions.

As of press time last night, she had not responded to Shanghai Daily's request for an interview.

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