Xinjiang riot premeditated
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Xinhua, July 21, 2011
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14 rioters were shot dead in a police station attack in Hotan City. |
Police in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region concluded late Wednesday that the riot on Monday noon was "a severely violent terrorism case," which was organized and premeditated by terrorism groups.
In the rioters' attack on a local police station located in the city of Hotan, where four people were left dead and four others injured, 14 rioters were shot dead. The brutal acts of arson, blast, attack and killing were widely condemned by witnesses and local residents.
Police: Premeditated riot
Bahtiyar, deputy chief of the city's public security bureau, told Xinhua that in addition to the 14 rioters that were shot and killed, four others were captured, and six hostages were rescued.
At the scene, police seized 30 axes, daggers and knives, three unburned gasoline cylinders, 48 stones and 30 grams of chili powder, said Bahtiyar.
Ablet Metniyaz, head of the police station, said the attack was premeditated as they had found two men carrying knives with them outside the police station one day earlier.
The two were brought to the police station for investigation, but did not telling anything, he said.
On Monday, the rioters were standing outside the station for a long time before the attack.
"After the 10-o'clock routine meeting, I led a group of police out for errands around 11 a.m., and they (the rioters) rushed in shortly after that," Metniyaz said.
Zhao Genlin, deputy Communist Party chief of Hotan's Public Security Bureau, said the terrorists prepared black banners written with "Allah is the only God. In the name of Allah," and hang them at the roof of the police station.
Rayhangul, a policewoman who was on duty when the riot occurred, escaped by jumping out of the office window.
"I saw more than 10 rioters stabbing a colleague on the ground with axes and knives," Rayhangul said.
"Feeling scared, I ran back to my office and locked the door," she said. "The office immediately caught fire, as they threw gasoline cylinders in, so I jumped out of the window to escape."
Witnesses: Horrific scene
When the riot occurred, 19-year-old Tohut Mamet were applying temporary residence permits at the police station with four others. The rioters failed to attack him as he locked the room door and blocked it with furniture.
"I might have been a victim myself. I extremely resented such acts of killing the innocent," Mamet said.
At the second floor of the station building, two women were stabbed to death. Blood stains were still seen on the walls and heaters.
"One of them lay at the threshold, and the other under the window. Wounds were all over," a policeman who investigated at the scene told Xinhua.
A doctor with the Hotan People's Hospital, without giving his name, said the two women were Han people, and their legs and arms were almost cut off.
Rioters also injured two taxation officers near the police station. One of them got four wounds in the stomach, said Erken Wumer, a doctor with the hospital. "His condition got stable, after we transfused 4,000 cc of blood to him during the surgery."
Public indignation
Local residents were outraged by the brutal attack, condemning the terrorism and calling for measures to stop further crimes.
"The terrorists killed people and set fires, I hate them," said cab driver Abudlimit.
"The violence affected my business as I could hardly find any passenger at that night," he said.
Niyaz, a businessman of the prosperous Atikar Bazaar in Hotan, condemned the rioters for killing innocent civilian people and bringing shame on Xinjiang.
Having visited many countries including Pakistan and Turkey, Niyaz said he felt the most freedom and safe living in China.
"People in Hotan don't feel afraid of walking in the street at night, and I don't want to see such a good environment to be ruined," he said.
"A dozen rioters jointly killed one person, such an atrocity is purely antihuman and antisocial terrorism," said Rayhangul, the policewoman.
"Shooting down the rioters during the riot is definitely correct, and we firmly support the actions of the police," said Wumerjan Ababyker, vice director with the Investment Promotion Bureau of Hotan.
"Decisive measures must be taken to stop violent terrorist activities in an effort to safeguard people's life and property," he stressed.
Many civilian people voluntarily joined the police's hostage-rescue campaign without thinking about their own safety, said Yu Wenyong, an officer of the police station.
A woman, who only identified herself as Huang, said she had witnessed Hotan's rapid development since she moved here seven years ago.
She believed that the achievement was made due to the solidarity and hard working of all the ethnic groups here and therefore she denounced the terrorist sabotage.
"I call for judicial punishment against all the crimes the rioters have committed," Huang said.
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