Mexico City: Mexico's government on Monday dismissed the head of federal police, Enrique Galindo, after a recent report that detailed grave human rights abuses by officers serving under him.

Earlier in August, an investigation by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission concluded that some 22 suspected drug gang members were "arbitrarily executed" in a confrontation with federal police in western Mexico in May 2015.

Galindo was removed from his post at the behest of President Enrique Pena Nieto to help facilitate a fast and transparent investigation of the case, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told a news conference.

In the bloody encounter last year, federal police ambushed suspected members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) holed up at a ranch near the small town of Tanhuato in the violent western state of Michoacan, killing 42.

Just one police officer died in the fight.