BEIJING, Sept. 21 -- Officials in Shandong Province were sacked and detained for forcing pregnant women to undergo abortions and for sterilizing couples.

    The dismissals and detentions were seen as a government push to improve official accountability.

    Yu Xuejun, spokesman for the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said the authorities had launched an investigation after receiving complaints of forced abortions and sterilizations by family planning officials in Linyi City, Shandong Province this year.

    "According to the results of a preliminary investigation, some persons concerned in a few counties and townships under jurisdiction of Linyi did commit practices that violated the law while conducting family planning work," Yu said on the commission's Web site.

    "Currently, the responsible persons have been removed from their posts. Some of them are being investigated for liabilities and some have been detained," Yu said without giving a figure for officials sacked and detained.

    Yu urged commission staff to learn a lesson from the case and "correct any infringements on citizens' rights."

    China, now the world's most populous nation with 1.3 billion people, adopted the family planning policy more than two decades ago to slow down the population growth.

    Tuesday's admission of official wrongdoing came after a blind man surnamed Chen accused Linyi officials of forcing couples with two children to be sterilized and forcing women pregnant with a third child to undergo abortions.