KOLKATA, India (UCAN) -- The government of West Bengal state, in eastern India, imposed night curfew and deployed the army on Nov. 21, after violence disrupted life in Kolkata, the state capital.

Violence broke out after two Muslim groups organized a procession and road blockade to protest the Indian government's decision to extend the visa of exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, who has been in India for 12 years.

She received several death threats from radical Muslims in her home country who consider her 1993 novel Lajja (shame) blasphemous. The Bangladeshi government banned the book.

Furfura Sarif Muzadeedia Anath Foundation and All India Minority Forum announced on Nov. 19 that they would organize a "chakka-jam" (road blockade) two days later.

The Muslim groups also protested violence in Nandigram, some 100 kilometers north of Kolkata, where villagers are resisting a government move to take over their land and convert it into an industrial zone. Communist-ruled West Bengal has been wracked by weeks of protests against the killing of Nandigram villagers by suspected communist cadres trying to get them to vacate their land. At least six villagers were killed in the violence this month, bringing the death toll this year to 34.

Mohammed Sarfaraz, a Muslim living on Kolkata's Ripon Street, told UCA News the Nov. 21 protest soon "snowballed into an urban war." By 9 a.m. "the police tried clearing the streets" and "rumors of a lathi (baton) charge" spread like wildfire, he added. Kolkata is 1,460 kilometers southeast of New Delhi.

Around 300 youths came out from "various nooks and corners" and began throwing bricks at the police, Sarfaraz said. The administration called in the army's Rapid Action Force (RAF), a special unit formed to quell sectarian violence.

Sarfaraz, who witnessed the violence, said the RAF presence further infuriated the youths. "Tear gas was fired to disperse the mob, which had swelled to about 500. But it did not have much impact," he added.

Jawed Shamim, a police official, told media the Ripon Street-A.J.C. Bose Road intersection became "the epicenter of violence." Shamim was injured in the fracas. The busy intersection in central Kolkata is near where the Missionaries of Charity headquarters are located.

The Missionaries of Charity closed their motherhouse as soon as violence erupted, a nun told UCA News. The house ordinarily allows people to visit the tomb of Blessed Teresa of Kolkata from 12 noon to 3 p.m.

A curfew was imposed between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. in parts of central and eastern Kolkata as a precautionary measure, authorities said.

Father Orson Wells, parish priest of Christ the King Church in downtown Park Circus, which houses a sizable Christian and Muslim population, told UCA News his parish held special Masses for peace on Nov. 21 evening and the following morning.

Recounting events, he said he saw schoolchildren walking on the streets with hands raised and police helping them to safety.

What hurt him "the most," the priest added, was to see teenagers in the mob throwing bottles of soda water and bricks at the police. "Why don't people understand that the police have to keep law and order?" he asked.

At Topsia, a few kilometers away, a mob torched seven vehicles. Abbas Ali, who lives nearby, told UCA News the scene soon became a "free for all." The battle raged until the RAF marched in, he added.

Ali said the worst affected were thousands of school children, teachers and "helpless parents." The 10-kilometer radius where the violence raged is home to at least a dozen premier education institutions.

Afsareen Bano, a Muslim woman, told UCA News she had dropped her daughter off at school at 7:30 a.m. as usual, but by 1 p.m. she was "praying to Allah for the safety of my daughter and husband."

Sarala Maheshweri, a Hindu woman in the Park Circus area, recounted that when she went to bring her son from the school, the streets looked like a war zone.

Many local people said members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, a Muslim religious sect, had also joined the protest.

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