BEIJING, June 13 (Reuter) - Tibetan officials said on Thursday they were pleased at progress made in re-educating monks at a monastery closed after a clash with officials sent to tear down pictures of the exiled Dalai Lama.

The officials denied a report by the London-based Tibet Information Network (TIN) that one monk had died after being shot by troops who took over the mountain-top Ganden monastery last month and that a 13-year-old novice had been beaten.

"No troops entered Ganden, there was no gunfire, no monk was wounded or died," an official of the Lhasa Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau said in a telephone interview.

The TIN, quoting sources in Tibet, said a 40-year-old monk, identified as Kelsang Nyendrak, had died several days after being shot in the lower back when troops opened fire before entering the largest monastery in the restive Himalayan region.

The monastery was closed and dozens of monks detained on May 7, a day after monks threw rocks and expelled a government work team sent to remove all pictures of Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, officials have said.

"We detained 63 monks in the monastery but no police were involved," the Lhasa official said, adding that two officials injured in the clash had been released from hospital and no charges would be filed against the monks.

He dismissed TIN reports that many monks had fled Ganden, about 40 km (24 miles) east of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, saying about 100 of the monastery's 600 lamas had returned to their homes nearby because they were frightened. The rest had remained.

"No monks ran away or hid and we did not send anyone to look for those monks who left," he said.

All 63 monks detained had been released, the official said.

"We did not find any splittists and we have not blamed any monks for this conflict," he said.

However, TIN said at least 40 monks were in police custody at Gutsa detention centre, about four km (2.5 miles) east of Lhasa, including three novices aged under 16.

Among the three was Gelek Jinpa, 13, from the village of Serkhang in Taktse county, who had been interrogated after the May 6 protest and beaten six times by police in the monastery before being transferred to Gutsa on May 16, TIN said.

He was the 74th Tibetan juvenile to be detained for a political offence in the past six years, it said.

Officials said they were unaware of a novice being beaten while in detention.

A working group was in the monastery, one of Tibet's oldest, organising the monks to study the religious policies of the Communist Party, the Lhasa official said.

"Most of the monks who left have returned and we are quite satisfied with the effect of the study," he said. "Some monks admitted they were not familiar with law and party policy."

Ganden would remain closed for an indefinite period, he said.

On April 5, Tibet ordered all temples in Tibet to stop displaying pictures of the revered Dalai Lama, permitted since 1979 as part of a Chinese decision to allow religious freedom.

Beijing's tolerance of support of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama has declined since last year when he identified an alternative to China's choice of the reincarnated Panchen Lama, the region's second spiritual leader.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of fomenting anti-Chinese unrest in Tibet.