HYDERABAD, Feb 27: Muslim groups in a southern Indian city on Monday called for a daylong strike this week when US President George Bush visits, while communist groups vowed to hold a massive protest against the American leader.

Bush arrives on Wednesday and is scheduled to visit an agriculture university and a business management school on Feb 3 in Hyderabad, a key centre of India’s booming information technology industry.

Muslims comprise nearly 40 per cent of Hyderabad’s 7 million population.

“We are appealing to the people to keep their shops and business closed on the day of Bush’s visit as a mark of protest,” said Abdul Rahim Qureshi, a leader of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, an association of several Muslim groups that has organized the strike. “As Muslims, it is our duty to protest against the US policies, especially the inhuman atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq and its continuing support to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine,” he said.

Mosques throughout Hyderabad, the capital of southern Andhra Pradesh state, unfurled banners reading: “We the people of India do not welcome the visit of US President George W. Bush.”

Communist groups and the Jamaat-i-Islami party, a hard-line Islamic group, said they will hold a massive rally in the city on Friday.

Meanwhile, leftist groups on Monday began collecting signatures from people across the city who oppose the visit, going to homes and traffic intersections. Islamic groups began a similar drive on Friday.—AP