Chongqing suspends highhanded official who roughed up villager

An official in Chongqing has been suspended for manhandling a villager and making him bow, as well as for using inappropriate language, a county government said on Sunday.

Video footage went viral, showing a middle-aged man wearing a brown leather coat - later confirmed as Chen Yong, head of Wushan county's Dachang township - harshly scolding an elderly man in shabby clothes, demanding that he admit fault for a perceived mistake and pressing his head to make him bow.

The elderly man was identified as Li Zelong, 60, a resident of Zhangshu village whose impoverished family qualified for government subsidies.