Beijing mounts holiday security blitz after fatal shopping centre knife attack
Hundreds of thousands of civilians and police sent to monitor busy public areas in lead-up to Lunar New Year
Beijing has deployed an estimated 700,000 official and volunteer civilian security monitors to the streets of the capital to ensure stability before the biggest holiday of the year, following a fatal knife attack in a busy downtown shopping centre on the weekend.
Legions of civilians in red armbands known as “Capital Public Security Volunteers” as well as police officers and armed police would patrol densely populated areas such as public transport hubs and shopping districts in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year, Beijing Daily reported on its WeChat account late on Sunday night.
The monitors would keep watch on the streets and report any suspicious activity immediately to the authorities, it said.
The extraordinary measures were “to maintain social stability and build a peaceful and festive environment”, the report said, citing an official from Capital Comprehensive Administration Committee for Social Security, an office coordinating activities between the municipal government and police.