Beijing-New York (PTI): Muslim extremists in Xinjiang had tried to stage an "uprising" against the Chinese rule in the restive oil-rich region last month when Beijing was engaged in quelling pro-independence protests in Tibet, the local government said on wednesday.

A "small number of elements" tried to incite "splittism, create disturbances in the market place and even trick the masses into an uprising," it said on its website.

There were no reports of injuries and the situation had returned to normal, the local government said, linking the people involved in the protest with what it called "three evil forces", an expression that China uses to refer to separatism, religious extremism and terrorism.

The US-funded Radio Free Asia said the Uyghurs had staged protests on March 23 and 24 in two areas in Khotan prefecture following the death of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist Mutallip Hajim, 38, in police custody.

The protest, which the government said was controlled by the police intervention, came as China was wrestling with the unrest in Tibet, which had erupted on a scale not seen in the last two decades after monks-led demonstrations in the capital city of Lhasa broke into violence, leaving 20 people dead.

The confirmation of the incident also comes close on the heels of China saying last month that a 19-year old woman suspect, an Uygur ethnic, had confessed to her role in the foiled terrorist plot to crash a Beijing-bound passenger aircraft from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

Beijing had earlier claimed to have foiled another plot targeting the upcoming Olympics here with the killing of two terrorists in the same region in January this year. The plane plot was blamed on Eastern Turkestan "separatist forces."