Serial blasts in China a rare case of suicide bombing

The death toll from yesterday's explosion in east China's Jiangxi Province has gone up to three with one of the injured person succumbing to his wounds.

The explosions rocked three different locations targeting the government in Fuzhou which included the office of city's procuratorate office which acts as the prosecutor for crimes.

While the official media provided a sketchy accounts of the explosions, state run Global Times termed the incident as 'suicide bombing', something very rare in tightly governed China.

Incidents of violence and protests takes place in Uygur Muslims majority Xinjiang and Tibet but such cases are very rare in mainland provinces, which have over 95 per cent of Han ethnic population.

Analysts say that the incident was a wake up call for the government to rein in hard on the local governments to streamline the policies towards demolitions for private and public projects, which were driving the victims to acts of extremism.

The Jiangxi Provincial Public Security Department identified Qian Mingqi, a 52-year an unemployed resident in Linchuan district of Fuzhou, as the suspect who had carried out the attacks "out of discontent" over the legal process relating to the demolition of his home.

Qian was not satisfied with his compensation and was angry about his case being dragged over by officials.

While the state media gave a restrictive coverage to the incident with state run CCTV (English) completely ignoring it, his case has become an instant hit among the millions of microbloggers which was fast becoming a new medium among the 477 million internet users in China.

Qin himself posted his details in his microblog before resorting to serial blasts.

A message on his microblog account said, "I was forced to step onto a road I didn't want to step on due to the loss of his newly built house, which was illegally demolished,"
'Global Times' reported.

He accused a local judge in Fuzhou of intentionally reaching an unfair verdict that cost him two million yuan (USD 303,000) in a house demolition dispute.

He said in the posts that his 10-year-long efforts to overturn the wrongful verdict were fruitless, and he would seek fairness through his own means.

In his blog, he highlighted the story of an old couple who tried to rectify an illegal demolition case, saying "the elderly couple failed at last when they died, and I, Qian Mingqi, will never end up like that!"

Yesterday's blasts were the latest incident involving confrontations over demolitions that resulted in casualties in Fuzhou.

Three people set themselves on fire in the city in September last year, one of whom died, as a result of a land dispute.

Mao Shoulong, a professor of public policy at Renmin University of China said that there have been previous examples of people who have sought attention through extreme actions to solve their problems.

This should never be encouraged by any means, Mao said.

"At the same time, authorities should learn to open smoother channels for the public to file their complaints before problems turn into confrontations and then violence," he said.