Many local residents gathered in front of a hotel in Shishou city of central China's Hubei province, protesting over death of a chef from the hotel on Saturday.

At about 5 p.m., more than one thousand people still crowded at the six-storey Yonglong hotel, where the ulterior walls were blackened after a fire. Windows at the first floor facing the street were smashed and the street was blocked.

A fire engine and two police vehicles were battered by protestors, witnesses said.

According to the city government of Shishou, police received a phone call at 8:36 p.m. Wednesday. A man's body was found at the gate of the Yonglong hotel at Dongyueshan road.

Initial investigation showed that the dead was 24-year-old Tu Yuangao, a chef of the hotel.

Police didn't find life-threatening injuries in the surface of the body. A note left by the chef showed that he was pessimistic and hates the world. Thus the death was believed then as suicide.

Police suggested to have autopsy of the body so as to make out cause of the death, but the request was rejected by Tu's relatives, who were not convinced by the allegation of suicide.

Local residents blocked the Dongyueshan road and the Oriental avenue on Friday, alleging foul play.

According to the local authorities, someone set fire to the hotel at 0:30 a.m. Saturday, which was put out at 3 a.m.

The body was in the first floor and some residents guarded the gate, saying that police tried to take the body.

Some local people believed that the chef was killed by gangsters.

"The Yonglong hotel is a den for the drug-addicts," said a man surnamed Zhang in his 50s. He showed Xinhua reporters the used injectors in the garbage at the back of the hotel.

A 16-year-old girl died in the hotel a few years ago. The death was later recognized by police as suicide, local people said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2009)