He said the police and Army will jointly patrol the violence-hit areas.

Even as he was speaking to the newsmen, reports of continued disturbances kept pouring into the city police headquarters as irate mobs continued to pelt stones at RAF and police from some pockets of Topsia and Tiljala.
The police said the Forum activists attacked them with brickbats and glass bottles forcing them to lob teargas shells and resort to lathicharge to chase away the attackers in various central Kolkata areas.  While Forum president Idris Ali claimed that the police arrested about 200 agitators without any reason, provoking the largescale protest, the Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan mosque attacked the West Bengal government for providing protection to Taslima Nasreen despite her act of “blasphemy”.

Pranab cuts short visit
Kampala, PTI: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is cutting short his stay in the Ugandan capital and returning to Delhi on Thursday because of the situation in Kolkata, which was rocked by violence. Mukherjee was scheduled to return to Delhi only on Friday.

    Large-scale violence broke out in central Kolkata on Wednesday after thousands of stone-pelting protesters clashed with police during a shutdown called by a Muslim outfit and the Army patrolled the streets.