Police are on the alert for ethnic violence in China's Inner Mongolia region amid reports of protests against plans to revamp the gravesite of Genghis Khan.

Hundreds of officers broke up a university rock concert at the Inner Mongolia Normal University in the provincial capital of Hohhot last Friday, the U.S.-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center reports.

The rock band Hurd had been scheduled to perform, and there were reports that the band intended to rally the students to protest after the concert, a university official said, according to the South China Morning Post.

Police dispersed a crowd of 2,000 students and imposed a lockdown on all schools in the city, confining students to their campuses.

Ethnic tensions have been stirred in the region over plans by a Chinese businessman to tear down the ancient Genghis Khan Mausoleum in western Inner Mongolia, and construct a more elaborate site as a tourist attraction. The site is considered sacred to the Mongolian community.

The rights group says that authorities have detained students who distributed leaflets encouraging people to protest the plan.

<Back>