SEOUL - Over 200 people have been apprehended in South Korea for posting murder threats on various online sites over the past month, said the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) on Thursday.

This comes amid the increasing violent crimes targeting random people in the country.

The KNPA said that it has arrested 216 suspects on charges of writing such threats as of 9am on Thursday, reported Yonhap, adding that 21 of them have been placed under arrest.

The number of online threats and apprehensions increased by seven and three respectively from the previous day, said KNPA in the report.

On Thursday, South Korea’s Ministry of Justice said the government would seek damages from suspects behind the online murder threats, according to The Korea Herald.

The government sees the instances as obstruction of official duty that “wastes police resources” and “taxpayers’ money,” it said in a statement.

Justice Minister Han Dong-hoon said the government will work to “seek both criminal and civil charges calling for damages” against the online threat culprits, saying such acts leave society panicked once they have occurred.

A revision of the Criminal Act to ensure harsher punishment for those posting online threats is also underway separately, the Justice Ministry said in The Korea Herald.

Under the South Korean rules, those who posted murder threats online are often subject to criminal punishment for intimidation or obstruction of official duties by fraudulent means, oftentimes leading to a suspended prison sentence against the perpetrators as these instances were less likely regarded as the preparation for homicide - a crime of harsher punishment - in court rulings.

On Wednesday, a suspect was arrested in Seongnam in the south of Seoul, for making an online post vowing to kill game company developers.

Earlier this week, a company employee in his 30s was nabbed for threatening a knife rampage at Gangnam Station in southern Seoul. He made the threat in an online post.