By Jeremy Clarke

NAIROBI, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Police sent to protect residents in the troubled Mount Elgon region of western Kenya are burning homes and beating people, the head of a government human rights commission said on Wednesday.

Some 60 people have been killed since December in violent clashes for possession of fertile land in the area near the Ugandan border, and tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes.

Local members of parliament say the latest clashes broke out when people displaced from their ancestral land attacked those who had taken it from them.

Police blamed the violence on criminal gangs, notably a group of young men calling themselves the Sabaot Land Defence Force.

Maina Kiai, chairman of the government's National Commission on Human Rights, accused the 300 to 400-strong police force sent to stop the violence of carrying out a "very brutal" operation.

"The police have been trying to flush out young boys accused of the attacks. In the process they are burning houses," Kiai told Reuters in an interview after his return from a three-day visit to the area.

"I am convinced a lot of homes are being burnt by the state, it's ... affecting many more people than possible suspects."

No police spokesman was immediately available for comment.

Land is an explosive issue in the east African nation, where for decades top politicians grabbed public land for political patronage, often dividing it among members of their tribe.

Kiai said he had seen charred remains of houses, granaries and food stores during his visit.

"It's not an effective way to bring security by burning people's homes," Kiai said. "The operation is very brutal and much more active than it was a month ago."

"Police are blaming the burnt houses on local gangs and people burning them for sympathy," he said.

"It doesn't take much to realise people aren't doing all this to themselves, that it's actually the security forces trying to flush people out. This was confirmed to me by several independent sources."

Kiai said police had also detained and beaten people on the basis of rumours and suspicions that they had led the attacks.

"We met someone who had been arrested by police and held for a number of hours," he said. "They beat him up and tried to extract a confession out of him."

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