At least four people including a police officer were killed when a crowd attacked a police station in China's restive Xinjiang region on Monday, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The attackers, who were apparently from the region's mainly Muslim Uighur minority, set fire to the building in the remote city of Hotan in the far northwest and took a number of hostages, the report said.

Two of the dead were hostages, one was a security worker and the fourth was the police officer, the report said, citing sources at the Ministry of Public Security.

It said police had shot and killed an unspecified number of attackers, but gave no further details and said the situation had now been brought under control.

Police "quickly converged on the scene and shot a number of rioters while freeing six hostages", the report said, citing the ministry sources. The injured -- including a security worker -- were taken to hospital, it added.

A spokesman for the German-based World Uyghur Congress said the clashes erupted after a group of Uighurs tried to take away a number of police officers so they could demand the release of family members who had been arrested.

"The Uighurs rushed to the police station to take away some police officers and ask them to release the Uighurs who had been arrested," Dilxat Raxit told AFP by telephone.

"A clash ensued. Police then opened fire. Thirteen people have been detained by police, and one was seriously injured."

Raxit said women and students were among the group, and urged Chinese police to "respect the political demands of Uighurs", pointing to religious restrictions in Hotan and the removal of land from Uighur residents.

A hotel employee in Hotan told AFP by telephone the clash had happened in an area of the city dominated by Uighurs, adding, "us Han Chinese very rarely go there".

The far-western Xinjiang region, whose Uighur minority has seethed under Chinese rule for decades, has experienced several violent bouts of unrest in recent years.

The worst came in July 2009 when Uighurs in the regional capital Urumqi vented decades of resentment with savage attacks on members of China's dominant Han group.

Han mobs took to the streets in the following days seeking revenge, but a second bloodletting was averted.

Nearly 200 people were killed and 1,700 injured in all, the government says, in the worst ethnic violence to hit China in decades.

According to Amnesty International, hundreds of people have been detained and prosecuted since those riots, with several dozen sentenced to death or executed and many more sentenced to long prison terms.

Hotan, which also is variously known as Khotan or as Hetian in Chinese, has seen its share of unrest in recent years.

In March 2008, authorities there said extremist forces tried to incite an uprising in a marketplace. Uighur exiles quoting sources in the city said up to 1,000 people were involved in two protests.

China is composed of 56 different ethnic groups, some of which agitate under Communist Party rule, resulting in sporadic bouts of unrest erupting in different parts of the country.

In May and June, thousands of ethnic Mongols in the country's north staged a series of protests against resource exploitation and environmental damage in the region.

Tensions also run deep in Tibet, where many Tibetans accuse the government of trying to dilute their culture, citing concerns over what they view as increasing domination by the Han.

Disquiet spilled over into violent anti-government riots in Tibet's capital Lhasa in March 2008, which then spread to neighbouring provinces with significant Tibetan populations.

But the Chinese government says it has markedly improved living standards for its ethnic minorities.

Xinjiang -- a vast, arid but resource-rich region that borders Central Asia -- is home to more than eight million Uighurs, and many are unhappy with what they say has been decades of repressive rule by Beijing and unwanted Han immigration.

While standards of living have improved, Uighurs complain that most of the gains go to Hans.

China has said it faces a serious threat from Muslim extremism in Xinjiang.

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