6 police held after student beaten to death outside Harbin nightclub

Six policemen in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang have been detained for allegedly beating a college student to death after a nightclub dispute, mainland media reported yesterday.

The death of Lin Songling, 22, has sparked protests near the centre of Harbin city in the past two days, according to witnesses and the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

Enraged relatives and fellow students from the Harbin Institute of Physical Education gathered outside a government office building near the scene in Nangang district and blocked a main road. The rights group said the number of protesters exceeded 100.

Xinhua reported yesterday that Lin and four other students had a squabble with six plain-clothes police officers over a parking space outside the Box nightclub at about 10pm on Saturday.

The quarrel soon escalated into a fight, according to the Heilongjiang Morning Post. Quoting witnesses, the report said police officers, who were from various police stations in the city, dragged Lin 80 metres away from his friends, took off his shirt and beat him to death.

Local police were accused of being too slow to stop the fatal assault after they received witnesses' reports about the fight, according to the Hong Kong rights group.

Witnesses were quoted by the group as saying police arrived at the scene at least 40 minutes after being called.