NEW DELHI - At least 13 people have died in North India in violent protests after a court on Friday convicted a self-styled "godman" guilty of rape, a senior state police official said.

"Thirteen deaths have been confirmed so far in Panchkula and two are critically injured," a police official at the Haryana Police headquarters in Panchkula, a city in north India, told Reuters by phone.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the head of a social welfare and spiritual group, was held guilty of raping two women followers in a case dating back to 2002 at the headquarters of his Dera Sacha Sauda group in the northern town of Sirsa.

Reuters