Authorities in northwestern China’s restive Xinjiang region have shot dead four ethnic minority Uyghurs who carried out a knife attack on a group of Han Chinese outside a popular casino, according to a police officer and local doctors.
The incident, in which police wounded another two Uyghurs, took place on March 12 at the Chess Room casino in western Xinjiang’s Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) city, the sources told RFA’s Uyghur Service Monday, confirming the attack despite a media clampdown on the region during the annual meeting of China's annual parliamentary session.
“The group tried to attack people inside casino, but they failed to enter because the security guards immediately closed the door, so the group attacked bystanders in front of the establishment,” said a police officer from Kashgar’s Shamalbagh police station, which has jurisdiction over the area.
“The place was populated by Han Chinese and eight people were injured,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The group also set fire to two motorcycles and two cars belonging to Han Chinese before authorities arrived and confronted them, he said.
“Within 10 minutes, our police reached the area, shooting and killing four of the six attackers,” the officer said.
“The eight injured [victims] were transferred to the Kashgar No. 1 Hospital.”
Physicians at the hospital confirmed that eight injured Han Chinese had been admitted for medical treatment following the attack.
Li Zhuren, head of the emergency department at Kashgar No. 1, said at least two of the victims were in critical condition.
“Four of the eight victims were seriously injured in the attack and two of them are currently in critical condition,” he said.
“Only two of the four who received less serious wounds have fully recovered and left the hospital, while the other six are still being treated.”
Qasimjan Tursun, another doctor at Kashgar No. 1, confirmed that the eight victims had been admitted on March 12, but said he was unclear what had happened to the attackers.
“I heard that the two attackers who were captured by police were also wounded in the shooting, but I haven’t seen them among the injured,” he said.
“It may be that they were taken to other hospitals. We can’t ask too many questions about such sensitive incidents, but witnesses said one of the two [captured] suspects was seriously injured.”
Reports of the attack initially circulated on Chinese social media last week, becoming the fifth incident known to have occurred in the region during the March 3-15 National People’s Congress in Beijing to be revealed that way.
Recent attack
Last week, officials told RFA that police in Xinjiang’s Hotan (Hetian) prefecture shot and killed as many as seven ethnic Uyghurs who had been “acting suspiciously” while they gathered at a restaurant on March 9, prompting a security clampdown.
They said the incident was sparked when members of a county-level state security unit demanded to search the men, prompting one of them to pull a knife and kill a police officer.
The incident drew immediate condemnation from the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) exile group, which expressed concern that authorities had restricted access to information about the killings.
The WUC called on the international community to undertake an independent investigation into the shootings in Hotan, noting that residents in the area had been warned by authorities to remain silent about the incident and to ensure that they don’t disclose any details to the media.
China has in recent years launched a series of “strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang in the name of the fight against separatism, religious extremism and terrorism.
The targets of these campaigns, the minority Turkic-speaking, Muslim Uyghurs, complain of pervasive ethnic discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression by China’s communist government.
Uyghurs say they chafe under strict police scrutiny and controls on their movements and violent clashes with authorities are not uncommon in the region.
Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by Shohret Hoshur. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.