A policeman was sentenced six months in prison for refusing to rescue a nine-year-old girl after receiving the report, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) announced on Sunday.

In May this year, Wu Zhigang was on duty when the parents of the girl called the police and asked that an office be dispatched to capture the man who had broken into their home in central China's Changning and abducted their daughter. Wu was given the assignment, but failed to catch the man or report the case to his superiors.

Later at night, the girl returned home after being raped. Wu again failed to go after the suspect.

On May 27, Wu was put on file for investigation and on June 7, he was prosecuted for dereliction of duty.

Wu Zhigang was only one of the names on the announced by the SPP.

Chen Bo, Tian Jintai, Sun Hemin, Liu Lin, Tang Jianguo and Tan Wengao -- all police officers in Nanchong, a city of southwest China's Sichuan Province -- ignored local meat vendors purchases of diseased pork.

The six officials were sentenced one to two years in prison according to the severity of their crimes.

Song Shiying, Zhang Ming and Zhang Shan, local environmental protection officials in Chengdu, a city in southwest China's Sichuan Province, were also punished for dereliction of duty.

They hid the fact that Tuojiang River had been severely polluted after being injected industrial waste water from nearby factories, causing direct economic losses worth of 219 million yuan.

To date, the three officials have been put on file for investigation. Since this May, the SPP initiated an intensive investigation on official's dereliction of duty and power abuse.

By September, a total of 1,980 officials have been put on file for investigation, which demonstrated SPP's resolution to crack down any kinds of job-related crimes and protect human rights.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2004)