POLICE say about 10 residents had beaten a migrant worker unconscious in Longgang District on Jan. 22. The man died Wednesday.
The victim, Ling Jianming, 24, was employed to replace electrical wiring in the Ailian community. He was moving scrap electric wire with other workers when three men armed with iron bars stopped them on the night of Jan. 22.
Other workers ran when they saw the three men, leaving Ling behind. Police now claim Ling was beaten by passing residents who thought he was stealing the electric wiring.
The three men, who had been hired to keep order in the community, called police, claiming a thief had been caught and injured by residents.
When police arrived, the attackers had run away, police said, according to a Southern Metropolis Daily report Thursday.
However, the workers who escaped said the three vigilantes they had encountered had been carrying iron bars and forced them to sit on the ground. They insisted that the three men had beaten Ling, not residents.
The three vigilantes were detained by police for questioning. They denied beating Ling, the police said.
Police claimed one of the workers, identified only as Lin, had gone to the Ailian Police Station the following day and confessed to stealing scrap electric wiring to sell. He later withdrew the confession.
Lin said he had been threatened and forced to make the confession.
The Longcheng Subdistrict Office said there was nothing wrong with Ling and his fellow workers disposing of the old wiring.
An investigation is continuing. (Li Hao)
