A masked man who killed one teacher and a boy and wounded two others in a Swedish school was driven by racist motives, police said.
Sweden was shocked by yesterday's attack in which the assailant walked through a school stabbing students and staff in Trollhattan, an industrial town of about 50,000 inhabitants in western Sweden that has a large proportion of immigrants.
Police shot the suspect, a local 21-year-old man, who died of his injuries at a hospital. He had no criminal record.
"We are convinced that the assailant was driven by racist motives when he carried out the act," police chief Niclas Hallgren told Swedish public service radio.
"We have reached this conclusion based on what we found when we searched his apartment and his behaviour during the act and also on the basis of how he selected his victims."
Most of the students at the school were from immigrant families.
"Everything points to this being a hate crime," lead investigator Thord Haraldsson told a news conference.
Interior Minister Anders Ygeman said record numbers of refugees had fuelled racism among a small segment of society.
"We will have to ask ourselves several questions about how society is developing, about polarisation and mobilise all good forces against this racist violence," Mr Ygeman told TV4.
The killings happened on the same day that the government announced up to 190,000 refugees could arrive in Sweden this year.
The government and opposition agreed today to restrict Sweden's generous immigration policies, worried that its resources have been stretched to their limit with tents being prepared to shelter thousands of new arrivals.
Mr Ygeman defended the government's liberal asylum-seeking policies, under which Sweden had accepted more refugees per capita than any other European country in recent years.
"You can't blame asylum policy because we have a madman who murders children," he said.
Attacker posed for photo before stabbing teacher
Swedish media said one of the dead, a 17-year-old pupil at the school, had come to Sweden from Somalia three years ago.
A 15-year-old, recovering in hospital from stab wounds, had recently arrived from Syria.
Police said they had found "a sort of suicide note" which clearly pointed to racist motives and showed the assailant had acted alone.
In a photo taken after the killer had stabbed at least one person, he posed in a corridor with pupils who thought his cape, mask and World War II-type helmet were part of a Halloween prank.
Moments later he stabbed a teacher who approached him.
School attacks are almost unheard of in Sweden - the last incident was near the city of Gothenburg in 1961 when one student was shot dead and six others were injured - and violent crime in general is rare.
Polls show most Swedes welcome refugees. But tensions have been rising.
A number of asylum centres have been attacked in the past week.
Police were forced to improve security at centres in August after the murder of a Swedish man and woman by a refugee at an IKEA store in the city of Vasteras.
The refugee had been denied asylum shortly before the attack.
