BEIJING: Authorities called Sunday for anyone involved in terrorist activities in China’s restive northwest to turn themselves in and promised leniency following a bombing that killed dozens of people.

The announcement came on the heels of a security crackdown launched over the weekend in response to Thursday’s attack at a morning street market, which killed at least 43 people and wounded dozens.

In Sunday’s announcement, public security officials in Xinjiang said people involved in a range of designated terrorist activities would receive mitigated punishments if they turn themselves in within 30 days, Xinhua reported.

The announcement also said those who surrender and offer information about other suspects or criminal activities “will be given minor punishment or exempted from punishment.”

China on Sunday vowed a year-long campaign against terrorism.

“With Xinjiang as the center, and with cooperation from other provinces, we will start a year-long specialized hard-strike campaign against violent terrorism,” the Ministry of Public Security said on its website.

The statement reflects the government’s concerns about terror after a series of deadly attacks in recent months targeting civilians and linked to Xinjiang, home of the mostly Uighur minority.

Five suspects carried out the attack on Thursday in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi which “killed 39 innocent people” and injured more than 90 others, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

One suspect has been arrested, Xinhua said, while four others died when they crashed cars into a marketplace and threw explosives.

Ismail Tiliwaldi, a former governor of Xinjiang, said in an editorial posted on a website sponsored by regional authorities that the attackers “vainly attempted to attract attention through a large-scale bloody incident and maliciously sow ethnic estrangement and cause hatred and opposition to achieve their criminal plot of separating the country,” according to Xinhua.

In far-off Beijing, police announced they were canceling vacations for officers and would step up patrols at train stations, schools, hospitals and markets. A measure under which passengers at stations in central Beijing are required to undergo security checks will be extended to three additional stations, the city government said.

Thursday’s violence was the deadliest single attack in Xinjiang’s recent history, and the latest of several that have targeted civilians, in contrast to a past pattern of targeting police and officials. It was the highest death toll since several days of rioting in Urumqi in 2009 between Uighurs and members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group left nearly 200 people dead.