Terrorist Attack in China

After a “terrorist attack” occurred at a crowded train station where at least 29 people were killed, China is putting forth all their efforts to seek justice according to the domestic security chief after the militants from the restive region of Xinjiang were blamed for the violence. The authorities stated that a group of knife wielding “terrorists” had launched a “premeditated” attack at the Kunming Railway Station in southwest of China on Saturday night where more than 130 people were also wounded.

According to Xinhua, a state news agency, police shot four of the attackers dead and captured one. It quoted the Kunming city government as saying that the evidence at the crime scene showed the attack had been carried out by “Xinjiang separatist forces.” About five others were on the run. Xinhua quoted the security Chief Meng Jianzhu saying that “this brutal attack on defenseless, innocent people by violent terrorists devoid of conscience exposes their inhuman and anti social nature.” He added that “they inevitably will face the severe punishment of the law. We must mobilize all resources and adopt all means to break this case.”

Meng, who is also a member of the ruling Communist Party’s elite 25-member Politburo, made an emergency trip to Kunming to visit the wounded victims in hospital and went to the train station where the attack had occurred. The attack has come at a sensitive time as China gears up for the annual meeting of its rubber stamp parliament where there is normally a tightening of security across the country. It has also escalated the simmering unrest which had centered on Xinjiang, a heavily Muslim region in China’s far west.

It is the first time that the people from Xinjiang have been blamed for carrying out such a large attack so far from their homeland. Before this attack there was a smaller incident which had occurred in October in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. China increased the security in Xinjiang after a vehicle ploughed into tourists at the edge of Tiananmen Square, kill three people in the car and two bystanders. China stated that it was a suicide attack by militants from Xinjiang. One senior member of an advisory body to the soon-to-convene parliament said such attacks in China had foreign links. Xinhua quoted PLA Navy Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo saying that this attack “was an issue of terrorism with links to the terrorist forces out of the country.”