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Caption: On Aug. 28, Chengdu municipal highway headquarters sent a group of more than 50 local men to Mingshui Village in Shuangliu County to seize land and begin construction of a road. The villagers attempted to stop the expropriation and were beaten. Six villagers were injured. (64tianwang.com)
Villagers in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, were attacked by over 50 unidentified men on Aug. 28 after they attempted to stop a road project.
The group of men appeared to have been sent by or associated with the municipal highway headquarters, who wanted to seize the land and begin construction. As violence was taking place, police stood by and took pictures.
Six peasants from Mingshui, a nearby village, were injured, including three who were hospitalized.
“The villagers were very angry,” Wu Ping, a resident of Shuangliu County, where the incident took place, said to The Epoch Times. She said that villagers attacked the bus the gang arrived in, pulling out wires and later towing it away at night.
Wu Ping’s mother, over 80 years old, was knocked to the ground and fell unconscious during the altercation, she said. “She is still vomiting now.”
The Shuangliu County government wanted to construct a second ring road in the urban expressway in Chengdu City. Part of the land they needed was from the Mingshui Village. The villagers owned the land and were living on it, and had not sold it to the government, according to interviews with villagers.
At 8:00 a.m. on Aug. 28, the headquarters of the second road construction sent a group of over 50 people, including three excavators, to the village to start construction.
“Since they couldn’t show us the legal approval document for land acquisition, the construction team was stopped by more than 30 villagers,” Ms. Wu said.
The police of Shuangliu County sent three police officers to the scene at 10:00 a.m., but they left without doing anything.
After 1:00 p.m., over 50 unidentified people -- the villagers called them a gang -- arrived at the scene. A villager, Mr. Zhang, called the police.
The gang drove the villagers away and started construction. “They injured two villagers who tried to stop the construction. One of them is Guo Dayong, whose head was slashed with a knife,” said Ms. Wu.
The police arrived half an hour later. However, the police did not stop the gang, Mr. Zhang said, “Under the noses of the police, four more villagers were injured. The police were just taking pictures by the side.”
Over 100 villagers then came out to attack the bus, causing the men to flee.
Villagers say that the offering price for the land was far below market value, and that if the villagers sold it they wouldn’t be able to get by.
When the police station in Yongxing Town was contacted, the officer on duty said “we are investigating it” and quickly hung up.
“The government oppressed the people with a gang. It aroused the public outrage,” Ms. Wu said. “How can they aim their guns at the people?”
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