VIOLENCE hit a town in eastern Burma after a woman was allegedly set alight by a Muslim man, police said, weeks after deadly religious attacks rocked parts of the country.

An ethnic Shan-Muslim man in eastern Shan State was arrested after he "torched'' a woman selling petrol on Tuesday evening, a police officer in Lashio town told AFP under the condition of anonymity.

"Some conflicts are happening in town. We do not know the details of what is happening at this moment. But the police as well as soldiers are in the town to control the situation,'' he said.

"She (the woman) was sent to the hospital,'' he said without giving any details about her condition or stating her religion.

A resident in Lashio, around 200 kilometres northeast of Mandalay, said Muslim shops had been destroyed as some Buddhist monks and angry locals demanded the police hand the suspect over to them.

"I do not know what is happening exactly. But some Muslim shops in the town were destroyed,'' one resident said, while another reported smoke and flames in the night sky.

Attacks against Muslims - who officially make up an estimated four per cent of Burma's Buddhist-majority population - have exposed deep rifts in the formerly junta-run country and cast a shadow over widely-praised political reforms.

The government says at least 44 people were killed and thousands left homeless after a flare-up of religious violence in March, which was apparently triggered by a quarrel in a gold shop.

Three Muslims, including the gold shop owner, were jailed for 14 years in April for assaulting a Buddhist customer.

Originally published as Riots after 'Muslim torches woman'