Experts in animal rights and psychology have urged people not to vilify a 10-year-old boy after it was claimed he intentionally killed five newborn kittens.

According to reports by China Small Animal Protection Association's Shanghai bureau, the animals were discovered dead by residents in a community in the north of this eastern metropolis on Aug 27.

In a post forwarded about 6,000 times on Sina Weibo, a micro-blogging website, the bureau claimed that the boy had killed the 2-day-old kittens while playing with them.

Neighbors nearby told Shanghai Morning Post the boy took the animals from a box and suddenly threw them against the ground.

"When I heard about this, I went to their home to reason with the boy's parents, but they refused to apologize, saying their child is still too young to know any better," a resident identified as Tang told the newspaper.

"They even blamed me for making a fuss, saying it was just several cats. The child would not tell me the whereabouts of the kittens," she was quoted as saying.

Reporters from Shanghai Morning Post who contacted the parents said they were told "no such thing ever happened" and were warned not to bother them again.

Despite the outcry among netizens and animal rights groups, Zhang Yi, vice-president of Shanghai Small Animal Protection Association, urged people not to be so harsh on the boy.

"Although this case is serious, as long as the child does not have any psychological problems, I don't think we should reproach him too much," he said.

As an expert in the field for 10 years, Zhang said he has come across many similar cases of children playing with animals like they are toys, sometimes causing them to die.

"Residents in the community should deal with the case in the right way," he added. "It happens from time to time that residents who have a caring heart for animals will immediately rush to the people involved as soon as something like this happens and denounce what that person has done. It does not help at all."

Du Yasong, a professor at the Shanghai Psychological and Counseling Center, also warned that the child's background or mental state need to be considered before he can be blamed.

"Some people are born with a personality that shows little sympathy to others and some children do this because their intelligence is underdeveloped," he said. "It is also possible the child has grown up in a family where little love is found. His parents may be arguing all the time, or he himself may have suffered abuse."

Zhang Liang, a professor at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' family research center, agreed and said the incident could point to larger problems in the boy's life.

"Other than simply labeling the child as violent, we can see he is lacking the education at home and at school to respect all living creatures," she said.

"He is only 10, and the people around him, including his classmates, teachers and friends, will exert a greater influence on him than his parents. We should pin more hope on the improvement of the entire education environment, instead of solely relying on families to educate our children."