Police in China said Wednesday they have arrested two people suspected of killing a Chinese journalist who had been following a scandal involving the sale of "gutter" cooking oil.

Li Xiang, 30, a reporter with Luoyang Television Station in the central province of Henan, was knifed more than 10 times early Monday as he returned home from a karaoke session with friends, state media has reported.

The Luoyang Police Department announced the arrests on its microblog. A spokesman told AFP the motive for the murder was "still under investigation".

Police had been treating the case as a "murder-robbery" after failing to locate the laptop computer Li had been carrying, but they had not ruled other motives, previous media reports said.

But Chinese Internet users said Li was killed due to his interest in the latest food scandal to hit China, a "gutter" cooking oil scam which has led to the arrests of 32 people caught selling the carcinogenic product.

Police in Henan and the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Shandong found more than 100 tonnes of the recycled oil illegally made from leftovers taken from gutters, the Ministry of Public Security said last week.

The last post on Li's microblog on September 15 said web users "had complained that Luanchuan county (in Henan) has dens manufacturing gutter cooking oil, but the food safety commission replied that they didn't find any".

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