Beijing: A group of people ransacked a police station in China`s southwestern Yunnan Province over a local environmental dispute, state media reported today.

The suspects, who attacked the police station, were residents of Baha Village in Babao Township on Friday. Police have already identified 16 people involved in the attack, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The assault on the police station followed attack by?100 Baha villagers on Jiangnan iron and alloy factory destroying its manufacturing facilities over an environmental dispute, officials said.

Following the attack, a work team dispatched by the county government ordered the factory to move out of the village within a year. The factory`s operation was suspended by authorities in October 2013.