MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned against vigilante action on Wednesday after ethnic Indians rallied for a second night in Sydney against racially motivated street violence and allegedly attacked three men in retaliation.

Australia and India have held top-level discussions over concerns that some of the 90,000 Indian students in Australia are being racially targeted.

Rallies organized by Indian students have been held in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities, in recent weeks demanding that authorities prevent violence against ethnic Indians.

Police say some violence is racially motivated, but much of the crime is opportunistic. Indian students sometimes fall victim because they travel alone late at night to part-time jobs or from universities carrying valuables such as laptop computers, they say.

Rudd said while violence in Australian cities is "a regrettable part" of urban life, vigilante action is equally unwelcome.

"I fully support hard-line measures in response to any act of violence toward any student anywhere - Indian or otherwise," Rudd told Fairfax Radio in Melbourne.

"We also need to render as completely unacceptable people taking the law into their own hands," he added.

His comments come after Indian students in Melbourne formed groups to escort other Indians home from crime-prone train stations.

In Sydney, students took to the streets on Monday and Tuesday night to protest recent attacks that they said were racially motivated, including the alleged assault of two Indian men by a group of ethnic Lebanese on Monday.

Three Lebanese men were assaulted in a retaliatory attack Monday night.

Police arrested two men during a protest in Sydney late Tuesday by about 70 Indian students. One was charged with carrying a weapon, a metal pole, while the other was released without charge, a police statement said.

Victoria state police announced Wednesday that they will increase their presence at some Melbourne train stations, including officers on horseback and with dogs.

"The message is to reassure the Victorian community that we understand that there is a significant issue here, that we take it seriously," police chief Commissioner Simon Overland said.