Akbar Wupper (right), administrative commissioner of Kashgar prefecture, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, talks with Hou Xiaoqin, political commissar of the Xinjiang Armed Police Regiment, at a group discussion of deputies from Xinjiang to the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Tuesday. CUI JIA / CHINA DAILY

Maintaining stability in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is extremely important not only for the area but for all of China, an official from Kashgar said on Tuesday.

"Several violent incidents have happened in Kashgar in the past year and they were instigated by three overseas forces of separatists, extremists and terrorists," Akbar Wupper, a deputy of the National People's Congress and administrative commissioner of Kashgar prefecture, said on the sidelines of the annual NPC session.

He said the three forces constantly try to infiltrate their extreme beliefs into the prefecture that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Six people were killed, and 15 others, including three policemen, were injured after attackers set fire to a restaurant and started a killing rampage against civilians in the city of Kashgar in July. Five suspects were shot dead by police.

An initial probe has shown that the heads of the group had learned how to make explosives and firearms in overseas camps of the terrorist group East Turkistan Islamic Movement in Pakistan before entering Xinjiang to organize terrorist activities, the Kashgar municipal government said.

"About 99.99 percent of Xinjiang people are peace lovers while only a handful are people who want to cause trouble, so they couldn't have any impact on the region's overall stability," said Jurat Imin, an NPC deputy and vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Xinjiang Committee. Jurat was the administrative commissioner of Hotan prefecture from February 2008 to January this year.

"I am confident in maintaining the stability of Xinjiang, especially southern Xinjiang's Kashgar and Hotan, and the regional government is capable of doing so," he said.

"The overall social situation in southern Xinjiang remains stable and under control."

He said the turmoil in North Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the world had created a negative impact on the region as it stimulated the three forces and made them more active.

On July 18, a police station was attacked and set on fire in Hotan by a group of rioters. Eight people were taken hostage, two of whom were later killed. Police shot dead 14 rioters.

Police also had to open fire on a group of violent terrorists who kidnapped two people on Dec 28 in the remote mountainous area of Pishan county, Hotan. The group originally planned to receive training from terrorist groups abroad but later got lost in the mountains.

Seven kidnappers were shot dead, and four others were wounded and arrested. One police officer was killed and another wounded. The two hostages were freed.

Combating the three forces has been and will always be one of the authorities' top priorities and challenges in Xinjiang. Overseas separatists, extremists and terrorists have taken advantage of modern communication technologies such as the Internet to instigate unrest in Xinjiang, so authorities have to keep adopting new measures to prevent them from carrying out violent crimes in the region, he added.

Xinjiang will spare no effort to prevent and crack down on sabotage activities to ensure social stability, Nur Bekri, chairman of the region, said on Monday, Xinhua News Agency reported.

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(China Daily 03/07/2012 page5)