Indian police gunned down two protesters and arrested more than 130 others during street rallies sparked by remarks from two Indian ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokespersons about Prophet Muhammad, officials said on Saturday.
As in India, anger erupted in the Islamic world last week and around 20 countries have since called in their Indian ambassadors to condemn the remarks with calls emerging to boycott Indian products.
BJP’s Nupur Sharma made the remarks during a TV debate on May 26, while Naveen Jindal, who was media head of the BJP’s Delhi unit, had posted a tweet on June 1 about the Prophet. He deleted the tweet later.
Sharma was suspended and Jindal was expelled on June 5 after the diplomatic backlash. On Thursday, Delhi Police filed a first information report against the two.
In India and neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh and Pakistan, Muslims took to the streets in huge numbers after Friday prayers.
Demonstrations took place in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, West Bengal, and Telangana, among other places on Friday.
"Police were forced to open fire to disperse protesters... resulting in the death of two," a police officer in Ranchi told AFP.
Officers said that the crowd had defied their orders not to march from a mosque to a market and had thrown broken bottles and stones when police attempted to disperse the rally with a baton charge.
Authorities cut internet connections in the city and imposed a curfew, with local residents telling AFP the atmosphere remained tense on Saturday.
Curfew was imposed and internet services were snapped in parts of Kashmir, where YouTuber was arrested for posting a video that showed him beheading an effigy of Sharma on Saturday.
Faisal Wani, the accused, deleted the video and posted an apology on his YouTube channel earlier in the day though.
Police in Uttar Pradesh fired tear gas to disperse at least one rally after several demonstrations were staged across the northern Indian state.
Most protests ended peacefully but demonstrators in some cities threw stones at police and injured at least one officer, said Avanish Awasthi, a senior government secretary in the state.
Up to "136 protesting miscreants" had been arrested from six districts around Uttar Pradesh.
Authorities also cut internet services for the weekend in several districts near the eastern megacity of Kolkata, after protesters blocked a railway line and mobbed a police station.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said that some political parties want to incite riots and asked why should the citizens suffer for the BJP’s “sin”.
Her comments came after violent protests continued in Howrah district.
“Violent incidents have been taking place in Howrah for two days now,” the chief minister wrote on Twitter. “There are some political parties behind this and they want to instigate riots. But this will not be tolerated and strict action will be taken against all of them. The BJP will sin, common people will suffer?”
Since coming to power nationally in 2014, Narendra Modi's government and the BJP have been accused of championing discriminatory policies towards followers of the Islamic faith.
His government proposed a controversial law that granted citizenship to refugees in India, but not if they are Muslim, while state BJP governments have passed laws making it harder for Muslims to marry outside their religion.
The Foreign Ministry last week rebuked US officials for what India termed "ill-informed" and "biased" comments made during the release of a religious freedom report that accused Indian officials of supporting attacks on minority worshippers.