(Corrects headline to read central China, not south China)

BEIJING, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Thousands of students attacked a county government office in central China, smashing windows and clashing with riot police, in unrest triggered by a property dispute, a rights group said on Saturday.

Students from a high school in Shenqiu county, Henan province, clashed with police on Friday morning while trying to stop a developer from building apartments on their sports ground, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement faxed to Reuters.

The students became enraged when two girls were injured in the scuffles, and proceeded to surround the local government building at noon (0400 GMT), the Hong Kong-based rights group said.

"(They) smashed the main building's entrance and windows. Fires lit by some students were put out," the group said.

The county government called in an emergency detachment of 100 regular and armed police to try to disperse the several thousand students at the site. Some 20 students were subsequently injured in clashes with police, the group said.

A local resident contacted by Reuters by telephone confirmed the report.

"Of course the developers are in the wrong for trying to take over the students' sports ground," said the resident, who declined to leave his name.

Calls placed by Reuters to the county government office went unanswered.

Students did not disperse until after 8 p.m. (1200 GMT), after a government official "promised to talk with the developer", the group said.

China, with its vast and poor rural population, sees many thousands of protests every year, but has been rocked by several incidents of bitter rioting in recent months.

Tens of thousands of locals torched government offices and smashed police cars in Weng'an county, Guizhou, in June, after claims spread that authorities had covered up a teenage girl's death. (Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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