Five people were hacked to death by a knife-wielding attacker on Friday before being shot dead by the police in a central Chinese city of Changsha, the Telegraph reported.
Photographs posted on the Chinese internet showed bloodied bodies lying in the street, reminiscing a slashing spree at a railway station by militants from the restive Xinjaing province that claimed 33 lives.
Habil Turdi, a baker, first slashed another market seller to death and then, on the run, randomly killed four more people before being shot by police.
"Two vendors got into a fight inside the Shahuqiao market in Wujialing," the local police said in a statement. "One was killed by the other with a knife, and then attacked four innocent bystanders as he was running away, killing two immediately. Police arrived and shot him dead. The two injured were taken to the hospital but soon died."
According to the Telegraph, the account of the massacre by the local police conflicted with initial reports.
Hunan Transport Radio claimed there were several attackers and the stabbings happened after an argument between local residents and the shop owners.
There were also photographs on the Chinese internet of the police arresting, rather than shooting, one man. But the photographs were quickly censored.
Reported to be from the Uighur ethnic minority, the two market sellers have chafed under Chinese authority in their home region of Xinjiang.
Tensions between Uighurs and Han Chinese rose further after an attack on March 1 in the south western city of Kunming, when eight terrorists stabbed 29 people to death and injured more than 140 at the city's railway station, the Telegraph reported.
While four attackers were shot dead and one female suspect was captured on the scene, the police later announced that they had arrested three other suspects related to the attack. Subsequent reports by the Chinese media suggested the other three had been captured before the attack in Kunming, suggesting the gang was on the run.
Meanwhile, around 200 people rescued from a human trafficking camp in southern Thailand were reported to be Uighurs, confirming that Uighurs are exiting China's borders into south east Asia, the Telegraph reported.
More than 100 people in the past year have been killed due to unrest in China's Xinjiang province, prompting a crackdown by Chinese authorities.
