Authorities in East China's Zhejiang province reiterated on Monday that the death of a local village head, who had served prison time for leading protests over land expropriation disputes, was due to a traffic accident rather than any malicious intrigue.

Qian Yunhui, head of Zhaiqiao village in the city of Yueqing, was killed on the morning of Dec 25 in a road accident in the village in which a truck severed his head.

The death has stirred strong suspicion among the public. Local villagers and netizens questioned the validity of hurried official conclusions that did not appear to be based on sufficient evidence.

At a press conference on Monday, local police stuck to their earlier statement that Qian was hit by a truck driven by a man without a license when Qian was crossing the road holding an umbrella, which might have blocked his sight of the approaching vehicle.

He was then run over by the truck despite the driver's efforts to brake, police said.

But at the popular Internet forum Tianya and the Sina micro blog, villagers and netizens claimed the way the 53-year-old man was lying under the truck -- his body and the tire of the truck formed a 90 degree angle -- might suggest that he was deliberately held beneath the tire and ground to death.

If he had been knocked down by a moving truck, they claimed, he would have been lying in a forward direction.

Netizens also wondered why the truck was being driven on the left side of the road instead of the right, as is required by Chinese traffic law.

Police said that was because the driver was avoiding piles of cables that were blocking the right side.

They also said the monitoring camera at the site of the accident did not have a recording function, so there was no video evidence of the tragedy.

The unlicensed driver had been detained, police said, adding that another six villagers who attacked police when they arrived to investigate the accident had also been taken into custody.

For the past six years, Qian had been leading local villagers' protests and petitions against the expropriation of their farmland for industrial development.

In 2004 a power company seized nearly 150 hectares of agricultural land without paying a penny of compensation to the locals, according to a post on Tianya in August written by someone using Qian, the same name as the victim of the accident.

China Youth Daily reported on Monday that Qian had been thrown into prison three times in the past six years for his persistent demands for compensation.

The report also quoted local villagers as saying Qian was very protective of his fellow villagers' interests and that he was very likely to be re-elected as village head during the upcoming election.