Clashes between the followers of two religious communities are known as communal riots. No exact date can be ascertained to establish when such clashes ensued. However, it will be safe to say that these clashes are as old as the religions themselves. Any country, having population, comprising followers of different religions has been experiencing religion based disturbances. It is between Shia and Sunni in Pakistan, Iraq and some other countries, Muslims and Jews in Israel and Palestine, Hindu and Muslim in India, black and white in USA, Chinese and Buddhists in Tibet so on and so forth. But due to heavily controlled media, never any information about communal riots in China could trickle down to other parts of the world. In this background, when the news about a bloody riot between the Chinese and Muslims of June26,2013 came in the newspapers, the world was stunned.
During the Mao regime, no religious activity was permitted as Marx had called religion as opium to the people. From the Western press we used to get brief information that the mosques in China were used as military camps. We do not remember even Pakistan having ever opposed this outrage on Islam. Since the opening of the economy in post- Mao period, restrictions on religious practices have also been relaxed to a certain extent. This encouraged the Muslims to give vent to their long suppressed feelings which occasionally has been taking the shape of riots. There is yet another important factor for increasing communal flares. Whereas in other countries including India, attempts were made and are continuing to improve the life conditions of the minorities, so that they joined the mainstream, in China there is a crude experiment of making demographic change to the extent that the minoritie are reduced to non-entities and the chances of their raising heads are completely obviated. This has already happened in Tibet and are being applied elsewhere. Being the most dominant section of the Chinese population goes to the Hans. They are shifted to the troubled areas of minorities.
Adjacent to the Baltistan area of the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir is Chinese Xinjaing province. There are nine million Uygur Muslims in this province. When they started claiming their share in the national resources, the govt. shifted big numbers of Hans so much so that they are now 40% of the population of the province. On June 26, knife wielding Uygurs came out and started targeting govt agencies and personnel. 27 people were killed, several others injured and properties destroyed. Police opened fire and killed 10 rioters. This riot had taken place in a remote place of the province, known as Lakqun township of Shanshan country.
The authorities understand that such divisive activities are being spearheaded by the separatist East Turkmenistan Islamic Movement. So they have deployed a large number of securitymen to curb the uprising. Let us refresh our memory that the Asian countries of the erstwhile USSR and Afghanistan are having a good chunk of Muslim population and they are close to the Chinese province in question. Nobody can deny the possibility of their sympathy for their suffering co-religionicts in China. So long India was suffering from Pak led militancy in Kashmir, the US turned down our complaints under the plea that there was not sufficient proof. Today, under threat from such militants, they are themselves over eager to wage a joint war against Talibans, Jaish and other Muslim terrorist outfits. Similarly, so far, in pursuit of Sino-Pak friendship to harass India, China was enjoying our predicament from outside. Today herself in the clutches of Islamic extremists, China will think twice to encourage terrorism, growing in the fertile land of Pakistan. No wonder, like the US, they may also offer their hands in the mission to root out terrorism from the world.
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