School bullying has returned to the spotlight after a 14-year-old middle school student in Northwest China's Gansu Province was beaten to death by five of his schoolmates before the International Workers' holidays.

Zhang Kai (pseudonym), who was a second year student at Weihe Junior Middle School in Longxi county, died on April 23 in a hospital after he was mauled by his schoolmates that afternoon.

One of the five students asked Zhang whether he had taken another student's earphones. When Zhang denied it, they began to punch him on the head with their hands and asked again. Zhang denied it again and was mauled from seven to eight minutes, a student named Zhao Yun (pseudonym), who claims to have witnessed the incident, told the Chengdu-based Red Star News.

Other students stood and watched the beating and Zhang did not fight back. Zhao said that he did not dare report it to the teacher because one of the five bullies was in his class.

Zhang later entered the classroom, stayed for less than 20 minutes and left. He never returned, according to the Red Star News.

Zhang died for severe brain injuries. The five suspects were arrested, local police said.

Netizens expressed their anger at the five students and believed that punishment on juvenile suspects is usually too lenient, which was seen in several previous cases.

In 2016, a 13-year-old boy in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region who killed two girls and one boy, aged 4, 8 and 7, respectively, was sent to a rehabilitation center for three years without criminal charges, according to thepaper.cn.

"Why are juvenile bullies forgiven or exempted from a prescribed term just because of their age?" one Net user said on Sina Weibo.

According to Article 17 of the Criminal Law, people above 14 and under 16 will be held criminally responsible only for eight crimes, including intentional homicide and intentionally injuring which results in death. People above 14 and below 18 shall be given a lesser punishment or a mitigated punishment.

The five bullies will face criminal punishment if they are older than 14, but the death penalty is inapplicable and the sentence is likely to be shortened, Liu Changsong, a Beijing-based lawyer, told the Global Times on Monday.

Liu noted that guardians of the five suspects should take civil liability and compensate the Zhang family. The school should also take civil liability if Zhang's family can prove their lack of supervision, which requires further investigation on whether bullying had happened before or the school had taken any measure if Zhang had reported it to the school, Liu said.

Liu also noted that it is also important to teach the students to seek help and offer help in such situations.