Police shot dead two Uygur women before railway knife attack, report say
Witnesses and leaked Guangzhou police document say two women were killed in police raid on night before railway knife assault
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 15 March, 2015, 3:23am
UPDATED : Sunday, 15 March, 2015, 3:23am
Mimi Lau in Guangzhou [email protected]
Scene of the raid in Xiniujiao.
Police shot dead two ethnic Uygur women who resisted arrest and detained more than a dozen Uygur men during a late-night raid in a village outside Guangzhou just hours before the knife attack at the city's main railway station on March 6, which left 13 people injured, witnesses said.
Residents of Xiniujiao - or Rhino Horn - village who witnessed the police raid told the Sunday Morning Post that more than 100 officers, some of them armed, had swooped on the suspects during the Lantern Festival on March 5.
The villagers said that the Uygurs had moved to the village late last year.
Three knife-wielding men attacked passers-by and passengers at random in the rail attack earlier this month. Police have been tightlipped about the ethnicity of the assailants, saying only that one had been shot dead and another arrested.
Witnesses said hortly after the attack that a third man, who they said resembled an Uygur, remained at large, although authorities made no mention of him.
While there is no official confirmation linking the railway station attack and the raid in Xiniujiao the night before, residents believe they are linked.
There was no official report about the raid, but sources told the Sunday Morning Post that a leaked police document circulating online and the interception of Uygurs who sought to leave the country via Macau was genuine.
"I heard loud noises which I thought were fire crackers," said a fruit vendor from Hunan province who was in Xiniujiao.
She described a massive police action with more than 100 officers, including special police in protective gear, arriving at the remote village in dozens of cars that filled the narrow streets.
Xiniujiao, in Baiyuan district, is a known as "Taobao village", referring to the e-commerce website where most residents are engaged in online sales due to the neighbourhood's good internet facilities, cheap rent and efficient express delivery services.
"I heard many gunshots near the water treatment plant," said a 53-year-old local man. "Many Uygurs were arrested. Two were women and they were killed."
"The Uygurs started appearing late last year," the resident said, adding that none lived there before.
"A relative working in Nanfang Hospital asked me what happened the next day as she heard noise but there was no mention on the news."
A 23-year-old shop owner from Guangxi said he was told by police that evening to shut his store during the raid.
A property agent from Fujian said he believed the raid and railway attack were linked .
"Right after the arrest, you see the railway station attack the very next morning. Of course they are related," he said.
The witnesses' comments were confirmed by a leaked police document circulating online, seen by the Sunday Morning Post, that said police raided the Meilicheng Apartment Building in Xiniujiao at 10pm on Thursday, March 5.
"Two knife-holding women resisted arrest and were shot by police. One was killed on site with the other one pronounced dead after being treated by hospital. No police were hurt," according to the briefing.
It said Guangdong police chief Li Chunsheng directed deputy police chief Peng Hui to lead the mission that arrested 16 suspects, including five women and 11 children.
The leaked internal briefing was dated March 6 and was prepared by the Guangdong Provincial Public Security command centre, which has listed the raid and the railway square attack as alleged terrorism cases.
Describing the attack, the report said two suspects who appeared to be Uygurs attacked civilians the morning of March 6. One was shot dead and the other was arrested after 13 people were wounded, including an auxiliary police officer.
It also confirmed a third man was at large.
The briefing statement also mentioned a series of failed Uygur smuggling attempts.
On February 28, police arrested six suspects in a smuggling operation in Macau, according to the statement. It also described a raid on March 2 conducted by mainland and Macau police that saw Liang Jinsheng, a 41-year-old suspected human smuggler from Zhongshan , and 45-year-old Wumaier Maihamuti from Xinjiang arrested with nine other suspects.
Police alleged that the two men had organised two batches of six Uygurs to be smuggled to Macau on February 18 and 24.
"Other Uygurs are waiting to be smuggled in Macau by this group, and remain in Guangzhou, Foshan , Zhongshan and Zhanjiang ," the briefing said.
Guangzhou remains on the top security alert, with Pearl River Delta cities second-highest and the rest of the province on level three, according to the briefing, which called for close monitoring of airports, railway stations, subways and ports.
