I got the inspiration to write this from one of the articles I found on the straits times just this morning, with the title "What the wild things are" by Charles Siebert.

With reference to the stabbing of an NTU professor by an international student this week, I would like to compare the incident to a chimpanzee attack which happened about a month ago. Friends and family of the international student most probably wouldn't know what was going through his mind when he stabbed his professor. After the lethal outburst, leaving the professor seriously injured, it is definitely mind boggling to many of us. Similar to the incident of the pet chimpanzee, Travis in Stamford, Connecticut, where a woman was robbed of her hands, eyesight and part of her face. These two incidents left me astounded. Aren't human beings supposed to be the 'primates with the so-called higher cognitive functions'? Why would a human then, stab another without any warning? Is the killing the only way out to problems he faced? This incident is definitely not a one off incident, with another similar one happening at nus in the past. What is it that made these otherwise wise students to carry out such an unbelievable act?
Well, I guess that would be something which even the best of psychologists wouldn't have been able to reason out or predict. Maybe stress is one of the reasons? We can only guess.
Now that such incidents occur, shouldn't we ask ourselves how are we different from apes who are deemed to be of lesser reasoning ability than us?