BEIJING: The head of China’s largest mosque was murdered after conducting morning prayers, the local government in the far-western region of Xinjiang said on Thursday, amid intensifying violence in the turbulent region.

Jume Tahir, the government-appointed imam of the 600-year-old Id Kah mosque in the city of Kashgar, was killed on Wednesday by “three thugs influenced by religious extremist ideology”, the Xinjiang government’s web portal Tianshan said.

Police launched an investigation and shot dead two of the alleged assailants while capturing the other, Tianshan said.

It said Tahir’s killing was “premeditated” and that the suspects intended to commit a “ruthless murder”. It also said they wanted to “increase their influence by doing something big”.

Uighur group says nearly 100 casualties in China clash

Tahir was found dead in a pool of blood outside the mosque’s prayer house, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported earlier on its website.

Xinjiang, home to China’s mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, has seen escalating violence which in the past year has spilled over into other parts of China.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2014