By Tham Choy Lin, Bernama,
Kunming : Two explosions in two buses on Monday killed two people and injured 14 in southwestern Yunnan province where over the weekend, deadly clashes took place between police and rubber planters in a rural county, the state media agency said.
Initial police investigations showed the two blasts were “done deliberately,” Xinhua News Agency said.
The dead were a 30-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man, Xinhua quoted Yunnan public security sources.
The first blast occurred near a bus stop in downtown Kunming, the provincial capital, at 7.10 am and the second at a nearby junction nearly an hour later, the news agency said.
Broken glass littered the bus stop which was sealed off by police stop.
Xinhua cited a witness who saw the bus blasted into pieces and the wreckage was cleared about two hours later.
To boost security leading up to the Olympics opening next month in Beijing, police banned explosives and other inflammable items from being carried on buses after three died in a Shanghai bus explosion in May.
On Saturday, two persons were killed and 54 people including 41 policemen were injured in a clash in Menglian county in Yunnan between rubber planters and a local rubber company in the latest of a discord that has simmered over the past few years.
Xinhua said police opened fire with rubber bullets when they were obstructed by 400 people from arresting some suspects and several police vehicles were damaged in the clash.
With the Olympics looming, the central government has asked all county heads to make every possible effort to redress local grievances in view of rising public complaints and mass incidents “to ensure a harmonious social atmosphere”.
Late last month, 30,000 people rioted in southwestern Guizhou province over the death of a teenage girl after allegations that she was raped and killed while earlier this month, migrant workers protested in eastern Zhejiang.
In the Guizhou incident, police said several autopsies showed the girl had drowned and 117 people have been detained over the unrest and rumours according to state media.