Several hundred demonstrators had been calling for the city's police chief, Khaled Ghazouani, to be sacked for abuse of power, the government news agency TAP reported yesterday.
The situation degenerated when Ghazouani slapped one of the protesters and the crowd tried to rush the police station and set it ablaze. Police opened fire, killing two demonstrators, aged 19 and 36, and seriously wounding three others, said union sources and an interior ministry source.
Two of those injured later died of their wounds, union activists and a local resident told later yesterday. A union source said Ghazouni had subsequently been arrested and the situation was calm late yesterday.
The official TAP news agency meanwhile reported the arrests of two members of the security forces suspected over the deaths of two detainees in Sidi Bouzid, in the centre of the country.
On Friday, several hundred people had demonstrated in front of the police station there after medical staff at the local hospital said they had found burn marks on the victims' bodies.