Police at a train station in the Chinese city of Xian shot an ethnic Uighur man who had charged into a ticket line holding a brick, police said on Wednesday, adding the man later died.
Public sensitivity to security at China’s railway stations has increased following a series of incidents including a mass stabbing at a train station last year in the southwestern city of Kunming that left 31 dead.
Authorities said that was carried out by separatist militants from the far western region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, who speak a Turkic language.
In a brief statement on its official microblog, the railway police in Xian said that at about 6 a.m. a Uighur man holding a brick “charged into” a line of people waiting to buy tickets.
“On duty police quickly got to the scene to stop (him), and after repeated warnings were ignored opened fire and injured (him),” police said.
The man died of his wounds in hospital, police said, adding the situation had returned to normal at the station.
The statement was later amended without explanation to remove reference to the man’s ethnicity.
Police provided no other details. Xian is a popular tourist destination as it is close to the famous Terracotta Army.
