LEAD: Chinese police kill seven kidnappers in rescue raid

Dec 29, 2011, 9:24 GMT

Beijing - Chinese police shot dead seven hostage takers during a rescue mission in the north-west region of Xinjiang, media reports said Thursday.

Authorities said 'violent terrorists' kidnapped two people late Wednesday in the remote mountainous area of Pishan county, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

A spokesman said police opened fire when the kidnappers resisted arrest.

One police officer died and another was injured in the shoot-out, which also saw four kidnappers wounded and arrested.

The raid freed the two hostages, the reports said..

The authorities did not immediately give any further details on the case.

Police said that in another case, extremists kidnapped and murdered a Uighur man this month for drinking alcohol.

The region has a history of clashes between the mainly Muslim Uighurs, who make up about 40 per cent of Xinjiang's population of 20 million, and the authorities and local Han Chinese population.

Uighur exiles said Wednesday's shoot-out was not connected with terrorism but was a response to a recent government crackdown.

'We are in contact with Uighurs on the spot,' Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Germany-based World Uighur Congress, said by telephone from Sweden. 'Such cases are the result of a wave of arrests of young Uighurs by the Chinese security forces.'

Several people had 'disappeared without trace' and the authorities in Pishan had confiscated the mobile phones of many people since the incident Wednesday, he said.