Chinese police have arrested 106 suspects for allegedly attacking farmers in a village in Hebei province last month, killing six and wounding 51.

Those formally arrested were among 248 believed to have attacked villagers, armed with hunting rifles, clubs, sharpened pipes and other weapons, to drive them out of the huts where they were camping on farmland in Shengyou village, in an effort to prevent a power company from taking over the land.

Investigators alleged that the attack was the work of two contractors hired by the state-owned Hebei Guohua Power Company to remove the farmers, the South China Morning Post reported Monday.

Five current and former Communist Party officials were expelled from the party or dismissed from their posts after the riot, the newspaper said. State media said they had violated economic and financial discipline with regard to land requisition procedures.

The villagers had resisted for two years the power company's efforts to acquire 64 acres of land, saying the offered compensation was not enough. The June 11 attack on them was widely reported in state media.