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NEW DELHI, Aug 9 (AFP) - India's new president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in his first trip since assuming the largely ceremonial post, will visit the riot-torn western state of Gujarat, his office announced Friday.

The visit comes after criticism that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu-nationalist BJP party, which nominated the Muslim Kalam as president, failed to curb the Gujarat riots that left dead more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Kalam, a former missile scientist who became India's 12th president on July 25, will travel Monday to Gujarat's commercial capital Ahmedabad and meet with political leaders, intellectuals, industrialists and schoolchildren, the presidential palace said in a statement.

"The president will also use this opportunity to learn personally about the rehabilitation measures undertaken by the government of Gujarat and non-governmental organisations there in the wake of recent disturbances," the statement said.

Kalam, considered a shrewd choice by the BJP because of his religion, was elected by an overwhelming margin in India's presidential electoral college.

However, he was opposed by the main communist party, which cited in part his failure to speak out more forcibly against the violence in Gujarat.

Riots erupted in the prosperous state after a Muslim mob on February 27 torched a train carrying Hindu hardliners, killing 58.

Gujarat is the largest state run by the BJP and human rights groups have charged that state authorities turned a blind or even sympathetic eye to vigilante violence against Muslims.

Intermittent violence continues, although only isolated incidents have occurred in the past month.

Besides Ahmedabad, Kalam will also visit Bhuj in western Gujarat, the epicentre of a massive earthquake that killed about 25,000 people and rendered about 1.25 million homeless in January 2001.

His office said Kalam would "learn about the progress on earthquake related disaster relief, as he had been closely associated with certain relief activities."

He will also visit the home of India's independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.

Before becoming president, Kalam spent 43 years in various space and nuclear research facilities in India, developing an array of weapons, including short-range, medium-range and ballistic missiles.

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