Urban manager stabbed by peddler in critical condition

By Chen Hong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-29 09:45

SHENZHEN: An urban management official who was stabbed in the back and chest by a peddler remains in critical condition in hospital two days after being viciously assaulted.

Thirty-year-old Lian Shitao is being treated at the Bao'an District People's Hospital.

The employee of Xin'an community, Bao'an district, a suburb of the southern city of Shenzhen, was attacked after trying to displace a peddler at around 2 pm Sunday.

Lian, together with three colleagues, was telling illegal peddlers to move off a foot bridge when the incident happened.

"It might be a planned action," Liu Xixian, chief of the law enforcement team of Xin'an community, told reporters. He said the assailant and a woman had set up a garment stall on the footbridge and refused to move.

The woman attacked Lu Guangwei, Lian's colleague, with sewing scissors but was quickly subdued, said Liu. The man then rushed at Lian, stabbing him twice with a 30-cm dagger before fleeing the scene.

Lian was rushed to hospital close to death but doctors said he was out of immediate danger following an operation on Sunday. However, they said his situation could worsen in the next three to five days.

The incident was the second of its kind this month.

On April 9, 10 minutes after peddlers were moved away from a real estate development in Futian district, Wei Faxing, a 21-year-old urban management worker, was stabbed in the side and subsequently died in hospital.

His killer, who had tattoos and was believed to have been a member of a Mafia-style organization employed by the peddlers to exact revenge on the urban management workers, is still at large.

Hu Zhenhua, director of Shenzhen Academy of Urban Management, said escalating conflicts between urban management workers and the peddlers an inevitable part of the process of urban development. "The normal operation of a city needs a more powerful urban management, or social order will be in chaos," Hu said, adding that urban management authorities should look for ways to reduce social conflicts.

Cao Hailei, chief of the urban management team at Dalang community, said their task has been demonized because workers are dealing with a disadvantaged minority that draws sympathy from the public, despite any problems they create.