The appalling murder of Jume Tahir, a renowned Islamic religious leader in Xinjiang, is another flagrant challenge by the violent terrorists to the common rules of the entire human society and it can by no means be tolerated.

Police have shot dead two suspects and captured another in their investigation of the murder of the imam of China's largest mosque, the Id Kah Mosque in the city of Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The 74-year-old was killed on Wednesday morning after he finished hosting the morning prayer.