Students and teachers smashed windows and set fire to a state capital building in southern Mexico yesterday as fury erupted over the missing 43 young people believed to have been abducted by local police linked to a drug cartel.

The protesters called for the missing students, from a rural teachers' college in Guerrero state, to be returned alive, even though fears have grown that 10 newly discovered mass graves could contain their bodies.

Dramatic photographs showed smoke billowing from the government building in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, and flames licking from office windows. Firefighters battled the blaze.

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Riots: The Guerrero state capital building burns after it was set on fire by protesting college students in Chilpancingo, Mexico

Riot police guard the Government palace in Chilpancingo. A group of students got into the building and destroyed several furniture pieces in protest over the disappearance of 43 classmates

Jose Villanueva Manzanarez, spokesman for Guerrero's government, said the protesting members of a teachers' union initially tried to get into the state congress in Chilpancingo but were repelled by anti-riot police. They then headed to the state government palace.

On Saturday, the governor of Guerrero said that some of the bodies recovered from clandestine graves last weekend did not match the missing young people.

The remains were uncovered severely burned, and experts are conducting DNA tests in an effort to identify all of the dead.

With the support of hundreds of students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college, the teachers blockaded the capital building, attacking it with battle bars, rocks and Molotov cocktails, he said.

The violence came more than two weeks after police in Iguala, also in Guerrero state, opened fire on the teacher's college students, killing at least six.

Fury: Teachers and students clash with policemen to protest the lack of progress in the investigation to find the missing students

Blaze: Firefighters try to extinguish the flames after the state capital building was set on fire by protesting college students in Chilpancingo

An overturned car burns after it was set on fire by protesting college students demanding answers about the 43 students who went missing on Sept. 26

Anger: Teachers clash with riot police in front of the Guerrero state congress building in the city of Chilpancingo

Witnesses have said that dozens of students were taken away by police and have not been seen since.

Twenty-six local police officers have been detained, and officials are attempting to determine if any of the students are in the mass graves nearby.

The confrontation in Iguala shed light on a widespread problem with local police in Mexico: They are often linked to organized crime.

Police allegedly linked to a criminal gang shot dead at least three students and abducted dozens of others during clashes in the southwestern city of Iguala last month

A police helicopter flies overhead as the Guerrero state capital building burns after it was set on fire by protesting college students

College students throw rocks as they trash and later set on fire the state capital building in Chilpancingo

Blaze: A burning overturned car stands between protesting students and riot police after it was set on fire by protesting college students

Anger: A college student throws a rock as he and hundreds others trash and later set on fire the state capital building in Chilpancingo, Mexico

In the case of Iguala, the police who attacked the students were working with the local cartel, Guerreros Unidos, according to testimony of those arrested.

Monday's protests came after police in Guerrero shot and wounded a German university student in a reported case of mistaken identity, prosecutors said.

The victim, Kim Fritz Kaiser, is an exchange student at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico City campus, said institute director Pedro Grassa.

He told Milenio television Monday that Kaiser is in good condition and that that injury was not grave, though Kaiser will remain under observation.

College Students burn a portrait of Guerrero state governor Angel Aguirre as they trash and later set on fire the state capital building

Men belonging to a community police force stand guard outside of the Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa Teachers College in the town of Tixtla, Mexico

An overturned car burns after it was set on fire by protesting college students outside of the Guerrero state capital building in Chilpancingo

A masked man belonging to a community police force patrols the area near the Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa Teachers College in the town of Tixtla, Mexico

Teachers clash with riot police in front of the Guerrero state congress building in the city of Chilpancingo

Men belonging to a community police force patrol the area near the Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa Teachers College in the town of Tixtla, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico

Kaiser was in a van with other students — another German, two French and six Mexicans — traveling back from Acapulco and passing through Chilpancingo just after a confrontation between police and kidnappers that killed one officer.

Police tried to stop the van, believing it was suspicious. Police said they opened fire when they heard something that sounded like a shot or detonation, said Victor Leon Maldonado of the Guerrero state prosecutor's office.

The students kept driving, fearing that armed men might be trying to kidnap them, state prosecutor Inaky Blanco said.

College students gather next to a perimeter fence protecting the Guerrero state capital building in Chilpancingo

Teachers clash with riot police in front of the Guerrero state congress building in the city of Chilpancingo

A college student sits on a wall as he uses a slingshot to throw rocks at the Guerrero state capital building

A masked teacher stands in front of a burning entrance of the Guerrero state congress building, in Chilpancingo

Maldonado told reporters in a press conference that the officers shot at the bottom of the van, trying to hit the tires to make it stop.

Kaiser was shot in the buttocks. The police involved have been detained and their weapons are being tested, according to a statement from the state attorney general's office.

A U.S. State Department travel warning issued last week said U.S. citizens should avoid Chilpancingo along with all parts of Guerrero state outside of the Pacific resorts of Acapulco, Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo and the tourist attractions of Taxco and the Cacahuamilpa caves.