Local police in Beijing said Thursday that a 28-year-old woman, surnamed Ma, has been arrested for spreading rumors about the female migrant worker who plummeted from a market building in the city last Friday.

A statement posted on the police's Sina Weibo account also rejected the rumor saying that the 22-year-old woman, surnamed Yuan, had been gang-raped by seven security guards at the Jingwen Market in the capital's Fengtai district, and that local police had refused to accept the case.

Ma confessed that she spread the rumor on Weibo after hearing some people discussing Yuan jumping out of the building after being raped.

The death of the woman from Anhui Province who worked as a salesgirl in the market, prompted several hundred people to take to the streets on Wednesday demanding a thorough and transparent investigation.

The protesters, including Yuan's friends and colleagues from Anhui, were dispersed by armed police officers.

The Global Times reported earlier that Yuan entered the building on the evening of May 2 by herself, before falling to her death at around 5 am the next day.

Local police confirmed and reasserted that Yuan did not have any personal interaction with others during her stay in the building, after reviewing all the surveillance cameras and interrogating staff in the building.

The autopsy results were also rechecked, ruling out the rumor that traces of sperm belonging to six different men had been found in her body.

A shop owner surnamed Xu at the market told the Global Times that business had resumed Thursday.

"But dozens of police officers were interrogating passers-by around the building," the shop owner said.

The police statement, however, did not specify why Yuan's death on May 3 ignited the massive demonstration.

Calls to the police's press office and police stations near the market went unanswered as of late Thursday.

Global Times