AKIPRESS.COM - Police in India's Haryana state are continuing an operation to arrest a Hindu guru, after nearly 200 people were injured in clashes at his ashram on Tuesday.

The self-styled guru, known as Rampal, is wanted in connection with a 2006 murder case and for contempt of court.

Thousands of his supporters are protecting the Barwala town compound. Police say armed supporters are holding people hostage and using women and children as human shields.

A week-long stand-off at the Satlok Ashram - some 170km (105 miles) north-east of Delhi - escalated on Tuesday as police moved in to arrest Rampal. Police fired tear gas and used bulldozers to try to break into the sprawling complex, while ashram members threw stones and other missiles and opened fire.

More than 100 policemen and 85 devotees of the guru sustained injuries, said police. The unrest continued on Wednesday morning as several thousand policemen stood outside the ashram.

Journalist Atish Patel told the BBC from the scene that some 30 buses carrying policemen from neighbouring areas had arrived and that police had blocked the main road to the ashram.

The ashram is surrounded by farms and policemen have spread out across the surrounding fields, he says. Police have also cut off power and water supplies to the complex.

Reports say that some 60 devotees managed to slip out of the Satlok Ashram, but several hundred are reportedly still held up inside. Police say many are being held against their will.

Mani Ram, a devotee who managed to escape, told the Indian Express newspaper that ashram authorities had prevented them from leaving for two days, insisting police would kill them if they went outside.

A spokesperson for the ashram, Raj Kumar, was quoted as saying in the Indian Express newspaper that "innocent people have lost their lives" in the fighting and that "eight bodies were lying inside the ashram, of which four are women".

But Haryana police chief N Vashisth denied there had been any deaths, saying that "we have ensured that no innocent person is harmed, and so far no such casualty has come to our notice".

Rampal is accused of involvement in a murder case dating from 2006 in which a man died in a clash at another of his ashrams.