A policeman has been beaten up in Qinghai province by a group of men, sparking outrage in the latest episode of violence by the notorious urban management force or "chengguan".
Ren Jie, a policeman in Xining, the provincial capital, suffered injuries to his head when a group of chengguan beat him with his own police baton on Tuesday.
Local police in Beicheng district had received an emergency call reporting that a group of chengguan were assaulting people. Ren Jie took decided to investigate and found a group of chengguan trying to forcefully clear a flower plantation for demolition.
Over the last two weeks, Xining has been implementing a major demolition campaign in its Beicheng and Dongcheng districts for a highway project.
Local residents resisted the chengguan's orders and a brawl broke out, Ren wrote in a diary post he posted on Renren, a social media platform similar to Facebook.
Chengguan surrounded him, took his baton and beat him, he wrote.
By Thursday, the post, which he deleted only hours after posting it, had reached Chinese microblogs, stirring further outrage against the urban management force tasked with upholding municipal bylaws.