A RESIDENT claimed to have been beaten by urban management employees for attempting to photograph them assaulting several disabled beggars in Longgang District last week.

The witness, surnamed Chen, who was being treated in a hospital in Pinghu Subdistrict for injuries to his thigh and back, said more than 10 urban administration officers attacked six disabled beggars while clearing a plaza off vagrants last Wednesday evening.

?°I took out my camera to take some pictures,?± Chen was quoted in yesterday?ˉs Daily Sunshine as saying. ?°Then two officers came up to me and beat me.?±

He said many enraged onlookers threw stones at the law enforcers, and another man who attempted to help the beggars was also attacked by the officers.

The beggars refused to receive medical treatment after being taken to Pinghu People?ˉs Hospital and returned to their hometown in Henan Province after the subdistrict urban management office paid them compensation, according to Chen.

The account of a restaurant owner, another witness to the incident, was similar to Chen?ˉs.

?°Hundreds of onlookers were enraged by the officers?ˉ cruelty and threw stones at them,?± said the man, who refused to be named. ?°I saw one shouting ??Justice would not tolerate this?ˉ and he was also beaten.?±

The Pinghu Subdistrict Office denied the accusations and said four urban management employees were attacked and injured instead, the Daily said.

A spokesman said the law enforcers were ordered to remove the beggars from the plaza after some neighborhood residents complained the beggars were too noisy.

?°The beggars used violence to stop the officers and smashed a vehicle,?± the spokesman said. ?°The officers did not fight back and detained two trouble-making onlookers for investigation.?±

He said the onlookers who tried to make trouble were possibly the masterminds behind the ?°begging racket.?±

Shenzhen?ˉs law enforcers made the headlines in local newspapers twice in the past two weeks.

On April 9 in Nanshan, a female pineapple vendor bit a law enforcer?ˉs penis during an operation to remove hawkers from streets. (Li Jing)