Tue, August 05, 2008
URUMQI, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- Police intensified road checks in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Tuesday, after the violent attack on police in the border city of Kashi on Monday, which left 16 policemen dead and 16 others injured.
Authorities in Kashi reinforced police power at road entries to the city on Monday afternoon, and ordered a full security vigilance in public places including government office buildings, schools and hospitals.
A Xinhua reporter in Kashi said that police demanded bag checks on passengers passing through road checkpoints, and got on vehicles to carry out security checks.
In Xinjiang's capital of Urumqi, special police used wireless ID check devices in routine street patrols. A special police on duty said that the digital device can trace the ID data through the police network, and send out alerts if an ID match that of a blacklisted suspect at large.
Fully armed local traffic police began to patrol on buses since early last month, to look over whether there are suspectable materials and people.
"The security overruns everything," said Han Shubin, the Nanjiao Police Station deputy director in Urumqi.
Ye Xiaofan, a local resident, said that passengers were very cooperative when they saw policemen got on bus for checks. "Their work is to crack down crimes and make us safe. It is our duty to cooperate with them," she said.
All the 16 injured policemen in the Kashi attack were still treated at the Kashi Prefectural People's Hospital. Four of them were in the hospital's ICU, while the other 12 were out of danger, according to hospital source.
The two attackers detained by police on the spot were identified as two Uygur men, aged 28 and 33, respectively, according the local police.
The incident is still under investigation. China's counter-terrorism experts and Xinjiang's public security department suspected a terrorist plot behind the attack.
The Spanish government on Monday expressed its strongest condemnation on the attack in Kashi. Spain reinforced its "radical condemnation to the terrorism in all of its kinds."
