Four officials sent by Beijing to investigate corruption in Guangdong have been killed in a mysterious fire at a state-run guesthouse. The blaze, in the city of Shantou on Saturday, also left a senior police officer dead.
Party officials, police and the guesthouse yesterday declined to confirm the identities of the victims. They said an investigation was under way. But a report on China Central Television's Web site said four victims were investigators from the top anti-graft body, the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection. The fifth was a deputy department head in Guangdong's Public Security Bureau.
It was not clear whether the fire was an accident. The Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News said Guangdong police chief Liang Guoju was in Shantou overseeing the investigation. The Shantou Yingbinguan Guesthouse, run by the Shantou City Government, caters mainly for government officials. An emergency meeting attended by government and party leaders in Shantou was held immediately after the blaze. Shantou party secretary Zhuang Lixiang reminded cadres to 'heighten their vigilance to prevent similar incidents'.
The newspaper said there were about 20 guests in the building when the fire broke out. Some victims were suffocated and lost consciousness in their sleep, while two were seriously injured when they jumped from a window.
The mainland media said little about the alleged corruption the investigators were working on in the port city, on the border between Guangdong and Fujian. It was reported in January that the anti-corruption commission was targeting a number of coastal cities, including Shantou.
Graft-busters from the anti-corruption commission often encounter strong resistance from local cadres. Investigators stationed in Xiamen investigating a major smuggling scandal last year reportedly were furious when they learnt their telephones were being tapped by local officials.