Beijing - Chinese officials have appealed for calm ahead of several sensitive anniversaries in Tibetan areas and claimed that life has returned to "normal" after violent protests by Tibetans in March, state media said Wednesday.

"Everything is back on track," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Nyima Cering, the vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region, as saying.

"Religious events have remained normal," Nymia Cering told a group of visiting Chinese and foreign journalists in the regional capital, Lhasa, where deadly rioting erupted March 14.

"We hope for peace and stability in Lhasa," Cao Bianjiang, the city's vice mayor, was quoted as telling the group.

Cao said the government had implemented security measures to "combat sabotage attempts" over the next few weeks.

Tibetan exiles have alleged that the government has intensified a crackdown in the region in the run-up to the anniversary of the rioting, this month's Tibetan lunar New Year celebrations and the 50th anniversary of the flight into exile of the Dalai Lama.

Nyima Cering defended China's response to the rioting and urged local people not to join a campaign by Tibetan exile groups for a boycott of the weeklong New Year celebrations, which begin February 23.

He said local courts had sentenced 76 people involved in the rioting in Lhasa last year.

The government said 19 people were killed in the rioting but the Tibetan government-in-exile said about 140 people were killed, most of them Tibetans shot by Chinese paramilitary police.

Police detained thousands of Tibetans after independence protests and riots erupted in dozens of other Tibetan areas of China.

The regional government on Tuesday introduced a Tibetan monk who told the visiting journalists that he was "misled by a group of people" and had falsified a report that Chinese police had killed more than 100 people, the agency said.

Last month, the regional government proposed holding a controversial "serfs emancipation day" on March 28, but it is not clear if the event would take place.

The "emancipation day" would commemorate the overthrow of Tibet's "feudal theocracy" by Chinese troops and the release of many Tibetans from serfdom 50 years ago.

The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's highest leader, fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against the occupation of Tibet by Chinese troops since 1951. (dpa)