Thousands of Chinese rioted in a dispute sparked by a lopsided roadside brawl, set fire to cars and wounded six police officers in an outburst likely to worry communist leaders in Beijing desperate to cling on to power. The official Xinhua news agency, in a rare report on a local disturbance, blamed Sunday’s riot in Chizhou in dirt-poor eastern Anhui province on a few criminals who led the “unwitting masses” astray.

The violence was the latest in a series of protests which the Communist Party, in power since 1949, fears could spin out of control and become a channel for anger over corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor. It started before 3 p.m. when a Toyota sedan grazed a middle school student crossing the street and the teen and the driver quarrelled. A few men emerged from the car and set on the student, a local store manager surnamed Wu who saw the clash told Reuters by telephone.

The men were taken to a police station and a crowd that had been watching the fight swarmed around the building, Wu said, demanding that the men be handed over to them as their numbers swelled by the minute.