Two people have reportedly died in a clash with Chinese police during a raid on a Tibetan Buddhist monastery where tensions have run high over the recent suicide of a monk.

The incident marks some of the worst violence in the ongoing troubles at Kirti monastery high in the Himalayan foothills in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province.

Police who have blockaded the monastery and restricted the movements of its 2,500 residents launched a raid on Thursday night, according to the US-based International Campaign for Tibet.

Police took 300 monks to an unknown location and two villagers trying to block the monks' removal were killed, it said.

The dead were named by the group as 60-year-old Dongko, and a 65-year-old woman, Sherkyi. The area has since been closed off to outside visitors, it said.

Tensions in Kirti were heightened by the suicide on 16 March of 21-year-old monk, Phuntsog, who set himself on fire in a protest against government controls of Tibetan Buddhism, which recognizes the exiled Dalai Lama as its leader.

China occupied Tibet in 1950 and claims the region has been part of its territory for centuries, although many Tibetans, who are linguistically and ethnically distinct from Chinese, say they were in effect independent.

Information from the remote region is extremely limited, and it was not immediately possible to confirm the incident.

Without mentioning the clash, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said authorities had ordered residents of Kirti to attend a course of legal education, a form of political indoctrination deeply resented by monks.