Tibetan protesters burn down police station in China

Beijing: About 200 Tibetan protesters hurled petrol bombs and burnt down a police station in a southwest China county on Sunday, a police officer said.

The officer, speaking even as the main government building in Aba county, Sichuan province, came under siege, told Reuters that protesters hurled rocks, injuring several paramilitary policemen.

She said security forces had fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested five people.

Sichuan province is one of four Chinese provinces with large Tibetan populations bordering the Himalayan region of Tibet.

In Lhasa, the most serious protests against Chinese rule in nearly two decades had erupted last week.