Jakarta – Around 1,000 angry residents of Inderagiri Hilir, Riau, Thursday night ransacked and burned down the local police precinct building. No casualties were reported in the incident which was triggered by a fight between two locals on Sunday, Antara reported.

Spokesman of Riau Police Adj. Snr. Comr. S. Pandiangan said on Sunday Maryanto attacked Masran with a knife. A crowd of people who witnessed the attack ran after Maryanto. At that time, head of the operations section of the Inderagiri Hilir PolicePrecinct, First Insp. Najib, was at the scene and he joined the crowd in the chase.

Maryanto, however, resisted the arrest and tried to attack the police officer with the knife. Najib fired a warning shot to prevent Maryanto from escaping, Pandiangan said.

Maryanto ignored the warning shot and continued to attack Najib, who finally aimed his gun at him. Despite the shot, Maryanto continued to run and jumped into a nearby river. A search was mounted, but his body could not be found. "But we still don't know if the bullet really hit Maryanto," said Pandiangan.

On Thursday morning people found Maryanto's pants and ID card near the site where he jumped into the river. "Rumors spread that Maryanto died under police torture," said Pandiangan.

At around 4:30 p.m. around 200 people went to the police precinct and as night came the number increased to around 1,000. They started to pelt the precinct with rocks and Molotov cocktails.

The police, who were outnumbered, were forced to withdraw and let the crowd vent their anger. They ransacked the building and finally set it ablaze. Several policemen were wounded from the stone throws.

Riau Police have sent reinforcement from Pekanbaru, including a platoon of the Police Mobile Brigade. There were no reports of an arrest