'Nearly 100 casualties' in Xinjiang violence

(MENAFN- Arab News) IJING: A clash in Xinjiang home to China's mostly Muslim Uighur minority left nearly 100 people dead or wounded an exile group said Wednesday after what authorities called a 'terror attack" on a police station and township.Dozens of civilians and assailants were killed and injured in the attack by a gang armed with knives and axes Chinese state media reported late Tuesday. 'Police officers at the scene shot dead dozens of members of the mob" the official news agency Xinhua said.It did not give a precise breakdown of the casualties from the incident on Monday the day before Muslims in China marked the Eid festival and information in Xinjiang is often difficult to verify independently.Xinjiang's government web portal Tianshan on Wednesday described the violence as a 'terror attack" that killed or wounded 'several tens" of Uighur and Han.The Han are China's largest ethnic group whose members have migrated in large numbers to Xinjiang in recent decades.Separately prosecutors in Xinjiang on Wednesday brought charges of separatism against a prominent Uighur academic detained since early this year and whose case has drawn international criticism.Prosecutors on their official account on Sina Weibo a Chinese equivalent of Twitter said they 'instituted proceedings at the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court against defendant Ilham Tohti who is suspected of separatism." Urumqi is Xinjiang's capital.Police detention of the outspoken economics professor in January has prompted condemnation from the US EU and international rights groups. Monday's violence came when 'Uighurs rose up to resist China's extreme ruling policy and were met with armed repression resulting in dead and injured on both sides" Dilxat Raxit a spokesman for exile group World Uyghur Congress said in an e-mail.'Nearly 100 people were killed and wounded during the clash" he said citing local Uighur sources.It took place in Shache county or Yarkand in the Uighur language near the edge of the Taklamakan desert in the west of the vast region.