An urban management official has been sacked following an incident on Monday in the central province of Hubei, in which a man who tried to film a conflict between local para-police and villagers was apparently beaten to death.

Qi Zhengjun, chief of the urban administration bureau in the city of Tianmen, is among more than 100 people under police investigation, said the city's party chief, Bie Bixiong.

Qi was also under secretary-general of the city government.

More than 50 para-police, known in Chinese as "Chengguan", reportedly beat Wei Wenhua, general manager of a construction firm in Tianmen, to death on Monday afternoon.

Wei, 41, was attempting to use his cell phone to film a clash between the "Chengguan" and villagers who were trying to prevent a garbage truck from dumping refuse near their village of Wanba.

Police have so far detained 24 "Chengguan" staff and arrested four of them.

An autopsy on Wei was carried out on Tuesday, the result of which will be released in a week.

Bie, the city's top official, described the incident as "infuriating" and "unforgivable" and said that "all the people involved will be punished severely according to law, no matter who they are."

The city government promised free schooling for Wei's daughter, 14-year-old Wei Zhen. The girl described her father as "kind-hearted" and "hard-working ... a man of integrity, always my role model."

Monday's clash also injured five villagers, three of whom suffered fractures and are still in the hospital.

The conflict with the "Chengguan" started when the latter's sanitation department dumped garbage near their village, which caused an unpleasant odor and contaminated drinking water.

Tianmen is a medium-sized city near Hubei's provincial capital, Wuhan. Its urban area has about 280,000 residents, and it produces at least 300 cubic meters of waste daily.

The sanitation department has sought to drain two fish ponds in Wanba village and build the city's first waste disposal center there.

(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2008)