KATHMANDU, April 20 (Reuters) - A strike by a Madhesi ethnic group in the plains of southern Nepal shut schools, factories and shops on Friday, with activists burning tyres on largely deserted roads, police and residents said.

The Madhesi People's Rights Forum has called the three-day general strike to demand greater autonomy for the southern plains, where most of Nepal's Madhesis live.

At least 58 people have been killed this year in protests by the Forum, which is demanding more seats in parliament and government jobs for the Madhesis of the Terai, home to nearly half of Nepal's 26 million people.

"All schools are closed, shops have downed their shutters and there is no traffic on the streets," said resident Shiva Hari Bhattarai from Rajbiraj, 100 km (60 miles) southeast of Kathmandu, the country's capital.

The Forum says Nepal's hill-dominated ruling elite have deprived Madhesis -- culturally and ethnically closer to people in the neighbouring Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh than to Nepalis in the mountains -- of their due share in power.

In Birgunj, a major industrial hub bordering India, Forum supporters burnt tyres to keep vehicles off the roads.

The Forum has so far refused talks with the government, saying Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, accused of ordering excessive force to crush earlier protests, must resign first.

"The government is insensitive to our demands. It does not consider Madhesis as Nepali citizens," Forum member Upendra Jha said.

The unrest has cast a shadow over a landmark peace pact with the Maoists who joined an interim government this month in a deal to end a decade-long civil war, which killed some 13,000 people.

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