Police at the private tutoring school in Kyoyo prefecture, Japan. (AFP)

Tokyo, Dec. 10 (Reuters): A 12-year-old girl was stabbed to death by a tutor in a classroom in western Japan today, local police said, the third killing of a schoolgirl in less than a month.

Media reports said the man had moved 12 other students to another room and locked the girl inside a classroom before stabbing her to death with a kitchen knife. Wires to a surveillance camera in the room had been cut, reports said.

Police in Kyoto prefecture said they had arrested 23-year-old Yu Hagino, an instructor at a private tutoring school, on suspicion of the murder of Sayano Horimoto, a sixth-grader.

“The suspect has said that he stabbed the student after getting into a verbal dispute,” a police spokesman said, adding that the stabbing occurred in Uji city in Kyoto. The girl died after being taken to hospital, he said.

Hagino told police that the girl ? who had stopped taking his classes this month ? had made fun of him earlier, media reported.

Hagino is a student at a nearby university and a part-time instructor at the tutoring school, the reports said.

Responding to the attack, the government vowed to consider steps to prevent recurrences at a time when parents are becoming increasingly nervous about their children becoming victims of crime.