Two Tibetans — a policeman and a suspected protest leader — have been killed in a rare gunfight in northwestern China after a raid to arrest the wanted man.

It is the first time China has announced that a protester has been killed since the latest bout of anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet in March. The outburst of anger against Beijing is among the most serious to challenge Chinese rule of the Himalayan region since an uprising in 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled into exile.

The protesters and rioters have traditionally taken up knives and stones to attack security forces and Tibetans armed with guns are almost unheard of.

Lama Cedain, 33, a Tibetan policeman, was part of a squad sent on Monday to arrest a group of people accused of inciting herdsmen in a remote county of northwestern Qinghai province to demand Tibetan independence, Chinese state media said.

Police spent a month trying to track down the leaders of a riot in the town of Shanghongke on March 21 — a week after Tibetans rioted in Lhasa, killing 18 people and setting fire to hundreds of shops and offices.

Mr Cedain was killed by six bullets when the police moved in to make their arrests at about 6.30am. His colleagues returned fire, killing the main suspect. State media did not give the name of the other dead man.

Police declined to say what kind of guns the Tibetans had used. An officer who answered the telephone at the public security bureau in Dari county said that everyone was attending the funeral yesterday and declined to say anything more as his voice broke with emotion.

Guns in private hands are rare in China, though underworld gangs have gained access to some firearms from Hong Kong. In Tibet, and some other ethnic minority regions, people use old-fashioned rifles for hunting.

Mr Cedain, who joined the police in 1996, entered the Communist Party in 2003 and was in charge of criminal investigations in Dari county. He received a hero’s funeral in the provincial capital of Xining and his body was covered in the flag of the Communist Party. More than 1,000 officials and members of the public paid their respects. A traditional Tibetan scarf of blessing was draped over his photograph. The police officer left a six-year-old son. State media described his wife as being prostrate with grief. One elderly Tibetan woman, quoted by state media, said: “He died for safeguarding our peaceful life, and gods would bless him.”

No details of the other dead man or whether anyone else was arrested in the gunbattle were available.

There have been few reports of the use of lethal force since the protests began. Paramilitary armed police sent into Lhasa to restore order were seen opening fire occasionally. There have been two reports that Chinese police opened fire in self-defence when Tibetan protesters in neighbouring Sichuan province threw stones. Witnesses said that about eight people were killed in one incident and nine in the second. Chinese officials have given no confirmation of these figures.

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