``The reaction of the Chinese side is neither called for nor justified,'' a spokesman of the Ministry of External Affairs said, in response to a query over the strong Chinese reaction.

``His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been received, in his capacity as a revered spiritual and religious personage, by successive Indian prime ministers and leaders in other countries,'' the spokesman pointed out.

Ministry officials said the Dalai Lama had met former prime minister Deve Gowda only last year as well as other prime ministers in the past. Further, during the Tibetan leader's last visit to the US, where he was received by US Vice-President Al Gore, President Bill Clinton found the time to ``drop in'' on the meeting for a ``whole ten minutes''.

The spat over the PM-Dalai Lama encounter began yesterday when the foreignoffice in Beijing, also in response to a question from a Chinese government-backed newspaper based in Hong Kong, said the ``meeting by the PM of India with the Dalai Lama violated the commitment by the Indian side of not allowing the Dalai to engage in anti-China political activities in India.

``It also interferes in the internal affairs of China and has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people. The Chinese government hereby expresses deep resentment and regret over the meeting,'' the Chinese spokesman added.

Beijing's strong reaction to an ``innocuous encounter'', analysts say, stems from its anger about the fact that the world community seems to be ``letting India get away unpunished'' for violating the global non-proliferation order by conducting its nuclear tests.

According to one view, the Chinese have been privately expressing their unhappiness to Washington over the Indo-US dialogue and seem to be concerned that New Delhi and Washington are engaging each other in a nuclear deal.