MORE than two weeks after the July 5 riot in Urumqi of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, social order and people's lives are returning to normal. Yet in retrospect, a mass of evidence shows that the unrest was a well-planned violent criminal incident of a terrorist nature.

Investigations by reporters reveal a salient feature of the riot, that is the perpetrators adopting the tactic of mass rally and making trouble in the open, which attracted people's attention and police force, while committing beating, smashing, robbery and arsons in other places.

At about 6pm on July 5, some people gathered in the People's Square, continuously making phone calls and sending text messages. Some people were shouting slogans to attract passersby. The crowd grew larger and larger.

Sudden eruption

According to the local police department, about 1,500 policemen were sent to the place to maintain order and disperse the crowd.

At about 8pm, the police were told that a group of thugs were beating innocent people, smashing cars and buses, and burning police cars at Er Dao Qiao in a southern area of the city.

Xinhua reporters in the area spotted the body of a victim under a bridge, people fleeing in all directions, shops closing, mobsters smashing and setting fire as they walked along. More and more shops, automobiles and public facilities were destroyed and people got hurt.

At the same time, those gathered in the People's Square began to walk to the south.

According to two officials from the local committee of ethnic groups and religions who walked after these people, at the Longquan Street intersection, someone jumped out of the crowd and began to instigate people to join and follow them. Longquan Street is a major passage leading to the Er Dao Qiao area.

At about 8:40pm, the crowd reached Tianchi Road - close to the Er Dao Qiao area - and were joined by about 200 people with clubs.

The two officials said that fewer than 20 policemen lined up across the street to stop the crowd, then someone in the crowd commanded the crowd to dash through the police line. A policeman was beaten down and the crowd continued to move south, behaving more violently.

According policemen at the scene, the crowd walked as far as several kilometers and more people joined in when the violence was worsening.

At about 9pm, the Urumqi public security department received reports that thugs were engaging in violence in more than 50 places in the city, attacking passersby, cars, shops, residential buildings, police and government offices.

The city's first aid center said it received numerous SOS calls starting from 8:23pm, resulting in the breakdown of the telephone switching system from overload.

According to the center, from the night of July 5 to the next morning, it dispatched ambulances 737 times to give medical support to about 900 injured people.

A young woman told Xinhua News Agency that she was in a bus when the thugs started the violence.

"There were also thugs in the bus. It was like they colluded over the whole thing and just waited in the bus for the time to come," she said.

The young woman said that she was beat "powerfully" in the head while trying to get off the bus after the driver opened the door. She was later sent to hospital for treatment.

"If there were no plan or organizing in advance, how could so many people appear in more than 50 places at the same time with the same violent behavior?" an expert on public security told Xinhua.

The local security department said these miscreants were mostly from outside Urumqi, and several leaders among them wore similar clothes.

Weapons ready

The weapons used during the riot were mostly stones, bricks, wood and iron clubs, as well as some knives and guns. Some businessmen in the city told reporters that knives were selling fast two or three days before the unrest.

The security department said that two train tickets were found on a captured suspect. One was a used ticket from south Xinjiang to Urumqi on July 4, the other was a return ticket on July 6.

Information revealed by a principal from a company at Tianchi Road showed that, at about 8:40pm a woman in a black robe ran to a man with about 30 thugs following. The man gave her several clubs and she gave out the clubs to the followers.

The principal said the stones and bricks used by these people were not from Tianchi Road as the bricks on the road were not damaged. "There were also some stones that looked like they came from building sites. It was like they had prepared them beforehand."

According to witnesses, the misdoers' wood clubs were actually used to support the small trees along the Tianchi Road. Each one was about 1.2 meters long, with a diameter of 5-10 cm.

Residents told reporters that about 60 small trees were planted along the road just in June. They thought the thugs chose the spot because of "ready-made" weapons. Also, the residents said there were many alleys and lanes along the road, making it hard to chase the thugs.

Witnesses from other places also claimed that the stones used during the riot were never seen in the city.

Businessmen from the area of the city's women and children's health care center told reporters that they saw people dropping stones from upper floors onto passersby and cars along the road. "The stones must have been carried upstairs beforehand ... How come there were so many stones in the buildings?" One of them said.

Many witnesses' accounts were confirmed by filmed records of monitoring cameras in which young women repeatedly appeared in black, white or brown robes and black hoods and young men in blue T-shirts.

Cold-blooded

In interviews, reporters found the main attacking method during the unrest was to hit people in the head with wood clubs and stones.

According to several local hospitals that received injured people during the riot, most of the patients had serious head injuries, and those who died had mostly suffered head injuries.

Police photos showed many victims lying on the ground amid scattered stones and bricks - some as large as a watermelon.

Transport facilities were also major targets.

Sources with the Urumqi Bus Group said that 28 buses were burned and 266 were smashed, accounting for one tenth of the total fleet.

A worker from a bus station that was attacked recalled that some miscreants had set up road blocks on several main streets and said they were "very good at driving" and familiar with the structure of vehicles.

Sources with the Urumqi Bus Group said at about 9:30pm, thugs rushed into the company's yard, pulled out the electrical wires from the circuit board and started the vehicles. They crashed the vehicles into the telegraph pole to which a monitor camera was attached.

Witnesses also said that many burned petrol-fueled vehicles were first ignited from the rear end gas tank.

Many company workers were shocked that the miscreants knew so much about their vehicles and said some of the knowledge could only have be acquired through professional training.

They recalled that in the last two years, some young men were practicing driving vehicles every night near the bus station. Many workers on the night shift heard the noises of engines and screeching sounds.