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China's Chongqing city witnessed major demonstrations hours before its top administrator and Communist Party leader Bo Xilai was removed, plunging the country into its biggest political crises in decades.
Crises compounded on Tuesday night as the purged leader's wife was detained on charges of murder following a mysterious death of 41-year-old British businessman.
Reports from Chongqing said the thousands of Chinese took to the streets and clashed with the police, but officials discounted that the riots had been triggered by the purge of Bo, considered to be a popular and powerful figure in the Chongqing city.
Bo Xilai, the charismatic former party leader of the city was suspended from his post on the politburo, the 25-member body that runs the world's most populous nation. Before being axed, Bo had been tipped for the very highest echelons of power in China.
The announcement that he had been removed from the politburo was followed by shocked revelation that his wife Gu Kailai was being investigated over the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
While the whereabouts of Bo, a former commerce minister and mayor of the biggest municipality of China, was not known, his wife Bogu Kailai and orderly have been arrested.
Bogu and Zhang Xiaojun, an orderly who worked for the Bo family, have been "transferred to the judicial authorities on suspected crime of intentional homicide'' state run Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
Bo, 62 has not been seen in public since last month sparking speculation he too may have been detained.
According to Xinhua Chinese police have set up a team to re-investigate the case of death of Heywood on November 15 last year.
Heywood was regarded as close friend and business associate of Bo's family, specially his son a student of Oxford.
Heywood was declared dead due to excessive drinking of alcohol but people who knew him said he was not a hard drinker.
Subsequently the British government asked China to investigate the murder.
The rare public scandal has exposed deep rifts within the ruling communist party ahead of a once-in-a-decade leadership transition due to take place in October this year.
Not since the purges after the crackdown in Tianammen square in 1989 has the Chinese leadership been exposed so much turmoil.
The British businessman's murder has embarrassed Beijing as it led to one of the top aides of Bo Wang Lijun taking shelter in the US consulate in Chengdu for over 30 hours in February.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin told a media briefing that British diplomats have been informed about the progress of the investigations.
After sacking Bo, the Communist Party of China published the opinion piece warning against new methods of corruption.
"Some corrupt individuals instruct their spouses, children, mistresses, friends or even relatives to receive bribes on their behalf, or receive remarkable personal bonuses through facilitating third-party business activities," the article said.
"Some deliberately commit corruption overseas, transfer embezzled money and assets abroad, or secretly obtain citizenship from foreign countries," it alleged.
Corruption took roots as infrastructure projects, state-owned enterprises and financial institutions became popular, it said.
Corruption remains stubbornly high in the judiciary along with governmental departments, as they have the power of administrative examination and approval, it said.
"A lot of corrupt officials are becoming even more creative as they try to evade investigation, for example disguising bribes by folding them into joint ventures or entrusted investments," the article said.
It also said that public should still have full confidence in the CPC-led anti-corruption work, because the Party has the resolution to succeed, and its strong leadership will prevail.