[11][12] At 21:20 on 1 March 2014,[13] a group of five individuals dressed in black clothes rushed into the square and ticket lobby of Kunming railway station and started to attack people indiscriminately.

[17] China News Service quoted a "Mr. Tan", who remembered seven to eight attackers indiscriminately slashing people regardless of age, even stabbing the wounded on the floor until they were dead.

[29] On 3 March the Ministry of Public Security announced that police had arrested three suspects and said that an eight-person terrorist group was responsible for the attack,[2][7][30][31] with five direct perpetrators and three others involved only in plotting.

Voice of America, a news network owned by the United States government, claimed that there had been scant information from official sources as to the identities, or even evidence that the attackers were Uyghurs.

[29][32] Anonymous sources from Radio Free Asia, another broadcaster that is under the supervision of the U.S. government, seem to confirm that they were Uyghurs, saying the gang most likely originated from a township in Hotan, Xinjiang, where it was claimed that police had violently suppressed a demonstration against the closure of a mosque and the arrest of its imam in June 2013 that ended in 15 dead and 50 injured.

[33] The sources claimed that after witnessing the capture of fellow Uyghurs attempting to flee China into Laos, the group became desperate because of their lack of identity papers along with being on the run from police.

[33] The three people accused of masterminding the attack, Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad, had been arrested on 27 Feb in Shadian, Yunnan, while attempting to illegally cross the border.

[40][41][42] Whilst China Daily noted the appeals by netizens to "stop circulating bloody pictures",[43] microblogged and social media-hosted images of the carnage were swiftly deleted by censors.

[37][39] Several Sina Weibo users also referred to the incident as our "9-11"; and the CCP-owned tabloid Global Times echoed the sentiment with a headline titled, "Nothing justified civilian slaughter in China's '9-11'".

[44][45] Jin Canrong of Renmin University suggested the way forward would be to de-emphasise Uyghur ethnicity and try to instill a greater sense of "Chineseness", stressing equal obligations and rights as Chinese citizens, while Barry Sautman, a China expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, suggested widening the preferential policies and granting Xinjiang Uyghurs greater autonomy.

[49] A Legal Daily video clip that broadcast on CCTV News on 3 March featured an interview with the SWAT marksman who was responsible for shooting five of the attackers and applauded his heroism.

[53] The People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, accused Western media of ambivalence and failing to state unequivocally that the attack was an act of terrorism, saying, "These media are always the loudest when it comes to anti-terrorism, but in the Kunming train station terrorist violence they lost their voice and spoke confusedly, making people angry," and named American news outlets CNN, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post as examples.

[44] An academic at the National University of Singapore warned of a very significant impact of the incident on the Chinese public as the attack took place in the heart of China, and not at the periphery, making the people more inclined to support the adoption of a more hard-line approach towards Xinjiang or Uyghurs, thus accelerating the cycle of repression and violence.

[46][47] Rebiya Kadeer, President of the World Uyghur Congress, called on the Chinese government to rationally handle the attacks and "not to demonize Uighur people as enemies of the state".

[62] The Analects column of The Economist asserted that although the alleged group leader's name suggests he may be a Uyghur, this would be difficult to verify in a country where media are state-controlled and officials tightly control information flows.

[14] The Economist also mentioned "Chinese oppression in Xinjiang" that "hit at the heart of Uighur identity" as a factor in the escalating violence, including: "students are banned from fasting during Ramadan, religious teaching for children is restricted, and Uighur-language education is limited".