Police shoot dead three Xinjiang suspects in north-eastern China
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Beijing (dpa) - Police shot and killed three people in north-eastern China who were allegedly armed with knives and resisted arrest, reports said Tuesday.
Police in Shenyang city in Liaoning province raided an apartment where the suspects from the restive Xinjiang region in western China were hiding out Monday.
Police wounded one other person and arrested a total of 17, reports cited the Shenyang Municipal Public Security Bureau as saying.
It is unclear whether the suspects were ethnic Uighurs, which have been blamed for a string of attacks. China has ramped up security in public places such as rail stations after attacks blamed on Uighurs last year resulted in the deaths of dozens of people.
The Xinjiang autonomous region has a history of discord between Beijing authorities and the predominant Han people on one side, and the regionally indigenous, majority-Muslim ethnic Uighur population.
Many Uighurs in Xinjiang complain of cultural and religious repression, and claim that ethnic Han Chinese migrants enjoy most of the benefits of development in the oil-rich but economically backward region.
