CHINESE police have arrested the suspected ringleader of last week's riot in the mainly Muslim north western region of Xinjiang, which left at least 10 people dead, and 144 injured, local officials said yesterday.
Authorities had issued emergency circulars calling on local officials to deal a blow to separatism in the frontier region and warning of severe punishment for last week's rioters.
Government units had been ordered to form vigilante squads to guard against possible attacks by separatists in the town of Yining near China's border with Kazakhstan, officials said.
"We are resolved to deal a blow to the handful of ethnic separatist elements," said Mr Zhang Youlian, deputy director of the foreign affairs office for the Yili Kazallli Autonomous Prefecture, which administers Yining.
Police had arrested Mr Abudu Heilili (29), of the Uighur ethnic minority, and were interrogating him following the riot last Wednesday and Thursday, a local Communist Party official said.
The suspect was unemployed and a ringleader of a less violent anti Chinese demonstration in Yining in August 1995, the official said.
Mr Heilili had been released after that protest following "ideological education" political indoctrination, he added.
Police had already rounded up 200 to 300 people after last week's riot, in which at least 10 people were killed and 144 injured.
Many suspects had been released after questioning, officials said.