Hundreds detained in Urumqi

URUMQI, China, July 20 (UPI) -- Chinese security officials appear to be using harsh tactics to bring normalcy in Urumqi, where ethnic violence killed more 190 people, witnesses say.

Security forces have detained hundreds of people, mostly Uighur men, since the July 5 riots in the capital of the northwest Xinjiang-Uighur region, The New York Times reported.

Racial tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese have simmered for years as the former resent being ruled by the latter. The government had vowed harsh punishment, including execution of those it says were behind the violence.

The warning has been broadcast regularly, striking fear among people in the Muslim Uighur quarter of Xiangyang Po in Urumqi, where many of the Han Chinese reportedly died during the riots, the report said.

"The rioters were not from here. Our people would not behave so brutally," a woman who operates a grocery store in the area said.

However, the Times said, security officials see the neighborhood as a traditional holdout of those seeking to split the region from rest of China.

"This is not a safe place," a local police official told the newspaper.

The state-run Xinhua news agency carried a long article to support what it said was mounting evidence showing the July 5 incident was a well-planned violent criminal incident of terrorist nature.