Guangdong police have cracked a total of 140 murders, 64 kidnappings, 77 gun cases and four explosion cases in the first two months of this year.

This was revealed Sunday by Liu Ancheng, director of the Criminal Investigation Department under the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security.

All the solved cases this year witnessed an increased growth from the corresponding number of cases solved last year, Liu told a news conference in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province.

And a number of criminal gangs and secret societies that used to be operating in Guangdong are believed to have been quashed to some extent during a special campaign.

The campaign has been launched since the beginning of the year when police began a special focus on fighting murder and robbery in the southern Chinese province which borders Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions.

Liu said the special campaign which will not come to an end till next month has been a heavy blow to the province's criminal elements in the region.

Zheng Dong, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security, has been commander of the special campaign.

A total of 14,348 criminal cases have been solved during the campaign, up more than 3 per cent from the same period of the previous year, Liu said.

Most of the cases have been cracked in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shantou, Zhongshan, Huizhou, Dongguan and other prosperous cities in the Pearl River Delta.

Despite achievements in fighting crime, Liu said Guangdong police will continue their efforts in ensuring a sound social order in the province. "Guangdong will never become a haven for criminals from the mainland and abroad," Liu said.

On February 27, Shenzhen police successfully rescued 11-year-old primary school pupil Wu Yande who was kidnapped after school with the suspected kidnapper Zhou Li from Hunan Province detained. Zhou had asked for 50,000 yuan (US$6,000) from Wu's parents. Wu is a pupil at Shenzhen Nanshan Shiyan Primary School.

And in Guangzhou, police arrested Xu Zhen and Xu Ke who are suspects in the murder of a businessman and a female store boss in Guangzhou's Tianhe District in January and February. Both Xus come from central China's Henan Province.

(China Daily March 29, 2004)