Three Chinese government officials were knifed to death and their bodies dumped in a lake, in the latest incident of violence in the restive far western region of Xinjiang, Radio Free Asia reported.
The report said the officials were killed during a visit to Xinjiang last month by President Xi Jinping, in an incident that also featured in the state-backed Global Times newspaper on Friday.
The Chinese government has blamed several violent incidents in Xinjiang on Islamist militants and separatists seeking to form an independent state called East Turkestan.
But exile groups and rights activists say China’s own heavy-handed policies in the resource-rich region have sowed the seeds of unrest.
The officials were county-level representatives, Radio Free Asia said in its report on Thursday, but did not name them.
