Relatives complain they have been denied access to images showing their loved-ones embarking on the doomed Boeing 777 that disappeared in March while flying to Beijing.
Chinese police "punched and beat" the grieving relatives of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 victims after they petitioned the company for information about what had happened.
The women, who were not named, told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post they had been set upon by six police officers at a police station in Beijing.
They claimed they were "dragged and punched" by police – an attack that resulted in one woman spending three days in hospital and both covered in bruises.
A photograph published by the newspaper showed a woman in a neck-brace lying on what appeared to be a hospital bed. It was not immediately possible to corroborate claims about the attack, which the women said took place on May 19.
In a separate incident, 16 other relatives told the South China Morning Post that they had been detained by police on July 14 after demanding to see footage of their loved-ones boarding Flight MH370 at Kuala Lumpur's international airport in March.
"The police accused us of being an organised group, and said that we had an agenda," one relative, who was not named, told the newspaper. "All we wanted was to find our loved ones – people with whom we share the same blood."
Another relative suggested police believed the families had violated China's strict laws against any form of public protest that might destabilise Communist Party rule.
"We were also warned that more than 10 people gathering together is illegal," they said.
Of the 239 passengers and crew on Flight MH370 when it disappeared from radars on March 8, 153 were Chinese.
A massive multinational search effort has so far found no trace of the plane, which is believed to have crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean. An underwater search is expected to resume in September.
Nearly five months after the plane vanished many Chinese families say they are frustrated with the excruciating lack of information.
There have also been reports of bereaved relatives becoming violent. In April, "a disgruntled family member" attacked a Malaysia Airlines security guard at a Beijing hotel where family members were staying, according to Malaysia's The Star.
"The families do not have to be abusive, we can sit down and talk in a gentlemanly manner," Joshua Law Kok Hwa, a Malaysia Airlines executive, told the newspaper.
