Beijing police are searching for information on two men from a restive region near the Central Asian border, after a Jeep ploughed into a crowd of tourists waiting to enter the Forbidden City and burst into flames on Monday. Two tourists and the three people in the car were killed, and 38 bystanders injured in the high-profile incident at the symbolic heart of the Chinese capital.

A circular sent by Beijing police to city hotels and later posted online lists the identity card numbers and names of two men from Pishan and Shanshan counties, which lie 800 miles apart from each other in the Xinjiang region. The names given in the notice appear to be Uighur, a Turkic ethnicity native to Xinjiang who often chafe against Chinese rule.

The Beijing police did not immediately confirm the notice as more details of the incident emerged. Witnesses said the driver drove the vehicle along the pavement in front of the Forbidden City before smashing into the marble bridge, suggesting that the crash was deliberate.