BEIJING: A Chinese court sentenced three people to death and one to life in prison on Friday for an attack at a train station that triggered a sweeping crackdown on what Beijing calls militant violence.

The March 1 carnage at a train station in Kunming, in the southwestern province of Yunnan, also saw more than 140 people wounded and was dubbed “China’s 9/11” by state-run media.

The government said knife-wielding militants from the western region of Xinjiang launched a premeditated attack in March at the Kunming station in the southwestern province of Yunnan, in which 31 people were killed and 141 injured. Police shot dead four of the attackers.

China’s leaders have vowed to strike hard at religious militants and separatist groups, which they blame for a series of violent attacks in Xinjiang, the traditional home of the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority.

State television showed the four suspects — three men and one woman — sitting in court in Kunming, watched over by police dressed in black.

The court announced the sentencing on its official microblog, naming the four defendants, all of whom are Uighur, to judge by their names.

“Today’s trial clearly shows the resolute attitude and staunch determination of the Chinese government to protect the life, property, security and joint interests of all ethnicities, and severely strike at violent terrorism crimes,” the Kunming Municipal Intermediate People’s Court said.

Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad were sentenced to death for leading a terrorist organization and intentional homicide. The fourth defendant, Patigul Tohti, was jailed for life for taking part in the attack as well as intentional homicide, because she was pregnant at the time of her detention.

Patigul Tohti was shot and wounded by police at the station, while the other three were arrested a few days before the attack while trying to flee the country, the court said.

In total, eight people were involved in the plot, though only five carried out the attack, it said.

“China should take the main responsibility for promoting policies of hostile repression that triggered this incident,” Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled group, the World Uyghur Congress, said in an emailed statement.

The Kunming mass knifing was the biggest-ever violent incident against civilians outside the region.

China’s courts have a near-100 percent conviction rate and the death penalty is regularly handed down in terrorism cases.

China last month announced the executions of eight people for “terrorist attacks”, including three it described as “masterminding” the car crash in Tiananmen Square. That came after 13 people were executed in June for attacks in Xinjiang.

In a statement Thursday, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate urged prosecutors, particularly those in Xinjiang, to fast-track terror-related cases and “deliver exemplary penalties.”