By IOL South Asia Correspondent

NEW DELHI, March 29 (IslamOnline.net) - The ongoing Anglo-American invasion of Iraq is drawing widespread protests all over India in various shapes and forms. Protest marches and demonstrations are held as a daily routine even in small towns across the country.

Seminars are being held by various universities and institutes to discuss the U.S. war and its implications. Even extremist Hindu organizations have condemned the U.S. aggression.

In a spectacular development a prominent Muslim university in the national capital, Jamia Millia Islamia, firmly shut its doors on U.S. and UK officials.

"Over 100 faculty members of the Jamia Millia Islamia have decided to ban the entry of officials from the United States and the United Kingdom into the campus," a press communiqué announced here Saturday, March 29.

The university faculty also passed resolutions condemning the U.S. aggression, and showed solidarity with the people of Iraq.

Terming the ban as the portrayal of their " formal civil resistance and expression of moral outrage", university faculty said they would not attend functions or interact with officials of the U.S. and UK embassies and the American Center.

"We the members of the Jamia fraternity wish to record our unequivocal condemnation of the U.S.-led aggression on sovereign republic of Iraq. The aggression is morally reprehensible and violates the UN charter. We express our solidarity with the Iraqi people, the victims of an unprovoked aggression, and call upon the invading forces to withdraw from the Iraqi territory immediately.

“We have resolved no to welcome any representative of the U.S. and British establishments to the Jamia Millia campus. We have also resolved not to attend any function organized by the U.S. embassy, the American Center and the British high commission," the press communiqué said and added, " The ban on entry into the campus will not apply to academics and students but to authorities of British and American organizations."

Earlier, students and teachers of the university formed a human chain in the campus March 28, after Friday prayers. Over 1,000 protestors formed the chain expressing their anguish and anger over the continuing bombing on Iraq.

Elsewhere in the country protest demonstrations are continuing. In the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, anti-war protest demonstration turned violent Friday, when the police resorted to baton charge and exploded teargas shells to disperse agitated protesters who indulged in stone-throwing and set afire U.S. flags and burnt effigies of President Bush.

The protest demonstrations were staged after Friday prayers and were led by Mirwaiz Maulvi Umer Farooq, a respected Muslim cleric and former Kashmiri Hurriyat Conference chairman.

Syed Ahmad Bukhari, Imam of Delhi' s Jama Masjid, in his Friday sermon said that the war was an attack on Islam and urged the Islamic states to rise against the United States.

"Indian Muslims consider the American attack on Iraq as an attack on Islam and humanity. America, by attacking Iraq, has proved that it does not care for international laws, UN charter or international public opinion," Bukhari said.

Noted Indian writer and winner of India's top literary Jnanpeeth award UR Ananthamurthy, denounced the US attack and called upon Indians to completely boycott American goods. " As a people, we have lost sensitivity to the people of Iraq. I plan to go to schools and colleges next week and urge them to stop buying Coke and Pepsi," he said.

To register their protest, Indian political parties took to streets and staged demonstrations. Leftist parties, who had always been at the forefront in campaigns against imperialistic and hegemonic tendencies, have time and again taken to streets in recent weeks to vehemently protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The opposition Congress Party too has expressed its immense displeasure over the American aggression, and sympathized with the hapless Iraqi people.