Authorities have rejected exiled Uygur leader Rebiya Kadeer's claim that security forces killed scores of protesters in Kashgar on Tuesday, but have still not released more information about the 156 people killed in Sunday's ethnic violence in Urumqi .
Police in Kashgar, the most important Uygur city in southern Xinjiang , denied they had opened fire and killed more than 100 Uygurs while breaking up a demonstration, as Ms Kadeer, president of the World Uygur Congress, claimed.
She also told the US media: 'Troops have entered Kashgar, and sources in the city say that two Chinese soldiers have been posted to each Uygur house.'
Her statement drew an angry response from authorities. Yesterday, Kashgar police confirmed that, at around 5.15pm on Monday, more than 200 people had tried to gather around the city's Id Kah Mosque - China's biggest - and had created 'a disturbance'. They gave no more information about the gathering, but said the crowd was 'ignorant of what really happened in Urumqi'.
Armed police and security forces soon arrived and 'immediately rounded up troublemakers and quelled the incident'. They said no one had been killed or injured.
A South China Morning Post reporter in Kashgar on Tuesday saw no acts of violence and heard no gunshots, and no one he interviewed contradicted the police version of events.