High Court reserves order on deploying central forces after protests

The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday took on record a report filed by the West Bengal government on the steps taken to control the situation in Howrah, Murshidabad and elsewhere in connection with the violence and protests over suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma's comments about the Prophet Mohammed.

The court completed the hearing and reserved its order on public interest litigations seeking an investigation by the National Investigation Agency, which probes terror cases, into the violence and the deployment of central forces.

Earlier, advocate general SN Mookherjee submitted the government's report and apprised a bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj about the steps taken by the state. He said public properties were damaged in the incidents and that the government had taken prompt action to bring the situation under control.


Howrah district witnessed massive protests from last Thursday and NH6 was blocked for more than ten hours on that day, prompting chief minister Mamata Banerjee to urge the protesters not to inconvenience the common people. However, protests continued till Saturday and Panchla in Howrah was the area where most violence witnessed. Several other places also witnessed similar incidents.

The bench was told that the government, as per earlier directions of the court, was monitoring video footage to identify the perpetrators of the violence.

During a previous hearing, the court had directed the Bengal government to ensure peace and said if any untoward incident took place, the state should seek help from central forces.