BEIJING: The head of a China's largest mosque was murdered after conducting morning prayers, the local government in the far western region of Xinjiang said Thursday, amid intensifying violence in the turbulent region.
Jume Tahir, the government-appointed imam of the 600-year-old Id Kah mosque in the city of Kashgar, was killed Wednesday by "three thugs influenced by religious extremist ideology," the Xinjiang government web portal Tianshan said.
Police launched an all-out investigation and shot dead two of the alleged assailants while capturing the other, Tianshan said.
Tianshan said Tahir's killing was "premeditated" and that the suspects intended to commit a "ruthless murder."
It also said they wanted to "increase their influence via 'doing something big'."
Tahir was found dead in a pool of blood outside the mosque's prayer house, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported earlier on its website.
Xinjiang, home to China's mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, has seen escalating violence which in the past year has spilled over into other parts of China.
RFA cited what it described as "witnesses and other officials," including the director of a neighborhood stability committee in Kashgar, who described the killing as an assassination.
Imams and other religious leaders in China are appointed by the government and subject to strict control on the content of their preaching.
Read more:
www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2014/Jul...g.ashx#ixzz3948hHqAa
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News ::
www.dailystar.com.lb
)
