Normalcy returned to Shimoga and Hassan towns in southern Indian state of Karnataka, hit by violence during protests by Muslims over publication of an article in a daily purportedly written by exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, while she denies writing the article yesterday.

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said, "those who take the law into their hands will be strictly dealt with".

Yeddyurappa told the state legislature that cases have been booked against the daily which carried the article and 103 people taken into custody in the two cities, where 33 persons and 25 policemen were injured in the violence in which 74 shops and 50 vehicles were damaged.

Two persons were killed, including one in police firing in Shimoga, Yeddyurappa's home town, during the protest against Kannada translation of an article purportedly penned by Taslima, published in a Kannada daily in its Sunday edition. Hassan was also affected by the violence yesterday.

Meanwhile, the exiled Bangladesh writer today claimed the publication of an article purportedly written by her in a Karnataka newspaper was “a deliberate attempt to malign" her and to “misuse” her writings to create disturbance in society.

She said in a statement emailed to this correspondent that she had never written any article for a newspaper in Karnataka where publication of her purported write-up against burqa system triggered violent protests in Shmoga and Hassan towns of the southern Indian state ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party.