Five people were burnt to death in a motorcycle garage by rioters last Sunday, taking the civilian death toll in the riots to 18, the Tibet Autonomous Regional Bureau of Public Security said Saturday.
The police found five bodies in the garage in Dagze County of Lhasa at 12:14 a.m. Thursday, said the bureau.
They found the garage's folding door had been damaged by rioters, and one of the valves of two gas cylinders inside had been opened.
The dead were identified as Liang Zhiwei, 33, and Wu Hongxia, 31, a married couple from central China's Henan Province, their eight-month-old baby boy, as well as two male employees.
In previous reports, the child was wrongly reported as a baby girl. And the two employees were said to be relatives of the Liang family, but no other details about their identities are available.
Police said they died on Sunday, March 16, at 10 p.m.
Unrest broke out in the Tibetan capital on March 14. The unrest spread rapidly to Dagze, where the Liang family and their two employees were burned to death, and 23 shops, one residence, two fire engines were torched, as well as one police car destroyed on the night of March 15. Dagze County is 25 kilometers away from downtown Lhasa.
Deqing town of Dagze, where the Liangs based their garage business, was in such a chaotic state that other people in the town didn't notice the disappearance of the five for many days. They thought the five might have escaped to their relatives' home, a neighbor told Xinhua.
The tragedy of the Liangs was first discovered by Qungda, a Tibetan who rented Liang Zhiwei the two-storey property to do motorcycle repairs two years ago.
Qungda, together with other members of his family, was in the home town of his wife in Qinghai Province on the day when the unrest began.
"Upon reaching home on Wednesday, I visited the shop. On the first floor, I found the interior was full of burnt debris, with a disgusting smell coming from the ashes," said Qungda.
"As I came to the second floor, I suddenly saw something reminiscent of a human spine. I felt something must have gone wrong, so I called the police."
"The renter was a hospital person from Henan and we had been on good terms," said Qungda, "when the baby boy was born late last year, I congratulated them and presented zanba and ghee, two traditional Tibetan culinary treats. I was astonished at the fact that such a small child could not be spared either."
Ma Zhenglu, another businessman who ran a business from across the street, recalled a mob began to stone shops on both sides of the street on the night of March 14.
The Dagze county government put up aid centers inside the administrative compound and invited all business people to move there on the same night.
Liang Zhiwei failed to move because he took the situation lightly. "I don't think anything serious would take place," was the last sentence Ma Zhenglu remembered Liang saying before the latter's death.
Ma and other business people in the town moved over to the aiding centers around 6 p.m. on March 15, but Liang stayed back.
"If only Liang had taken my advice, our lives would have been saved though our shops were set alight," said Ma sadly.
Pointing to the fresh traces of welding with the sides of the folding door, Ma said: "They must have thought that fastening the door by welding should prevent the mob from getting inside, but who could have expected these lawless people simply to rip apart the door and set the shop on fire."
At least 18 civilians and one police officer have been confirmed killed in the Lhasa unrest, which also saw 382 injuries. Damage is estimated at more than 244 million yuan (about 34.59 million U.S. dollars).
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article