HIV patients hired to ‘intimidate’ people out of homes in Henan province
Henan developer arrested and accused of paying infected people to intimidate residents into relocating to make way for real estate project
A man has been detained in Nanyang , Henan province, for allegedly hiring six HIV carriers to intimidate residents into moving out to make way for a real estate project.
More than 10 households left the residential community in Wolong district after the group left threatening messages on building walls, yelled at residents and set off firecrackers at night, The Beijing News reported.
The HIV carriers told residents that the developer had paid them a total of 300,000 yuan (HK$378,000) to force the residents to move out, and that they used the money for medical treatment, the newspaper said.
The city government said on its website that it had launched an investigation into the matter and that the company in charge of demolishing the area had been told to stop work.
It stressed that the Wolong district government was not responsible for hiring the HIV carriers or the intimidation of the residents.
But a commentary posted on Xinhua's website said the local government could not be absolved because it had played a major role in pushing the relocation and demolition programmes.
The district government wanted to relocate the residential community as part of a project to "renovate urban villages" - meaning that they wanted to demolish villages on the outskirts of cities that were surrounded by more modern buildings.