Canberra: Australians are being urged to eat Indian food in a campaign dubbed "Vindaloo Against Violence" to show their opposition to dozens of attacks on Indian students.

Melbourne woman Mia Northrop, who organised the campaign, said she was encouraging people all over Australia to take part in the unusual protest on February 24.

"The idea is that you just go to your local Indian restaurant and just dine on Indian food as a way of embracing the Indian community," Northrop told local radio.

"You can have this show of force that thousands of people are doing this same thing at the same time."

The attacks over the past 18 months, including a fatal stabbing of a 21-year-old Indian graduate this month, have strained ties with India and hurt Australia's lucrative foreign student market, its third largest export earner.

Indian media have labelled the attacks as racist, but police and the government insist they are purely criminal.

Northrop said she was amazed at the response "Vindaloo Against Violence" had received, with Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd following progress on a Twitter stream. Participants are being asked to register on a website beforehand at http://vindalooagainstviolence.wordpress.com/

"We've got people from Tennessee and Vancouver and Singapore and Hong Kong saying 'We're going to do it here'," she said.

Police in New South Wales state this week arrested three people over the murder of another Indian citizen, 25-year-old fruit picker Ranjodh Singh, whose partially burned body was found beside a rural road in December.

Police said the murder was not race-related.

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