Kunming attack
Beijing: Chinese police have launched a manhunt to capture five militants from Xinjiang who reportedly fled after taking part in the deadly knife attacks at a railway station in Kunming city in which 33 people were killed and 143 others injured.
Four of the attackers were killed, while one woman militant who was injured was captured after the incident yesterday. A search is on for the other militants, stated to be from the banned separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al-Qaeda-backed outfit. ETIM, is active in the northwestern Xinjiang province which has witnessed deep ethnic unrest between native Muslim Uyghurs and Han settlers from mainland China in recent years.
The Kunming municipal government said that evidence at the crime scene showed that the Kunming station attack was orchestrated by separatist forces from Xinjiang. No further details have been given. Thirty-three people including four militants were killed in the attacks and 143 injured, 33 of them seriously. A group of 10 attackers hailing from Xinjiang attacked the crowed with large knives hacking people indiscriminately, Chinese security officials said.
The attack lasted about 25 minutes after which the remaining militants escaped. Meanwhile, a semblance of normalcy has returned to Kunming city after the gruesome knife attacks. Order has been restored in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. At the train station where the attacks happened, train arrivals resumed on Sunday after three trains were disrupted.
Part of a major road in front of the railway station is still under traffic control and a waiting area on a square east of the station has been cordoned off. (PTI)