BEIJING — A kindergarten teacher suspected of abusing children was detained by the police in China’s capital, state media reported on Saturday, as the city government tried to contain public fury over claims that children at the kindergarten had been fed pills, jabbed with needles and forced to strip.

The police said a 22-year-old woman who taught at the RYB Kindergarten in Xintiandi, a middle-class housing development in east Beijing, had “been placed in criminal detention on suspicion of mistreating persons in her care,” Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported. The police gave no further details on the woman, other than that her last name was Liu.

The announcement seemed to at least partly vindicate parents who in recent days have claimed that children at the kindergarten may have been abused. They said 3-year-olds in one class had described being fed pills that made them drowsy and given shots that left tiny marks on their skin, and some alleged that children were stripped.

The allegations ignited a firestorm of public anger. Officials from the Beijing Municipal Education Commission suggested that Saturday’s detention showed that the authorities were addressing the crisis.