Defying a security clampdown, thousands of Tibetans gathered on Monday to honor a respected religious leader who died in a self-immolation protest against rule by Beijing.The high-ranking lama, called Sopa and aged 42, set himself ablaze and died on Sunday in front of the police station of Darlag county in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture after shouting slogans calling for freedom for Tibet.The Chinese authorities at first refused to hand over Sopa’s body to his relatives but relented after hundreds of angry Tibetans smashed windows and doors of the local police station.

Sopa had founded a home for about 100 elderly Tibetans in Gade county and an orphanage in Darlag.

Sopa was born in Gade and was a respected high-ranking lama of Gade’s Dungkyob monastery.

Following Sopa's self-immolation, Chinese authorities tightened security in Darlag, deploying additional security forces from the main town of Golog, as posters praising Sopa's act and calling for a boycott of Chinese goods appeared in the county, sources said.

“Over 50 vehicles carrying [Chinese] security forces have now arrived in Darlag town,” one Tibetan source said.

“The town is full of armed police who are trying to intimidate the local Tibetans,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tibetan sources in exile identified the two monks who died on Jan. 6 as Tenyi and Tsultrim, both in their 20s.

“Tenyi died that day, and Tsultrim died during the night of Jan. 7,” said Kanyag Tsering and Lobsang Yeshi, monks at the Kirti branch monastery in Dharamsala, India.

Another monk, Norbu Damdul, who self-immolated on Oct. 15, died on Jan. 5 at a hospital in Barkham (in Chinese, Ma’erkang) county in China’s restive Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) county in Sichuan, they said.

Fifteen Tibetan monks and nuns have set fire to themselves since March 2011 to protest Beijing’s rule over Tibetan areas. A sixteenth, a monk named Tapey, set himself ablaze in 2009.