Three policemen were injured when a mob attacked a rural police station in Anhui Province on Sunday, an officer said yesterday.

A man surnamed Song allegedly directed 30 relatives to block the gate of Baiqiao police station in He county, Chaohu city, after his teenage son was summoned to assist police investigating a brawl.

"They wanted to pressure us and force us to release the boy at once," a policemen, who wished to remain anonymous, told China Daily yesterday.

"They blocked the gate so nobody could get in."

After officers locked the door, members of the mob broke in and beat three police interns who were not wearing uniforms on the first floor, the policeman said.

"Then I came down from the second floor and drove away the gang with tear spray and controlled the situation with other colleagues," he said.

"We even found one of them carrying an axe."

Later that day, Song and his axe-wielding nephew were arrested for disrupting the social order.

Anhui province in central China is one of the major rural migrant worker bases.

Most young and middle-aged farmers from Baiqiao work away in cities, the policeman said.

"Returned migrant workers during the Spring Festival pose a threat to our social stability," the policeman said.

"Those young men have nothing to do at home but show off around town. They are easily irritated and get into fights."

He said more migrant workers had returned this year after thousands of labor-intensive export factories closed as a result of the global financial crisis.

(China Daily February 5, 2009)