SEVERAL people were killed and dozens were injured in a riot triggered when police allegedly beat to death a resident in southern China, newspapers reported yesterday.

Pro-democracy figures claimed fresh momentum today after tens of thousands of people rallied on the 15th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square massacre, but Beijing’s local allies denounced the protest as a ploy to seek independence.

The owner of a snack shop has confessed to spreading rat poison over breakfast food from a rival shop that killed 38 people in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, according to state media.

Police have arrested a man suspected of putting rat poison in food that may have killed dozens of people in eastern China, police said today.