Lucknow, Oct. 24: Riot-hit Mau and Agra began a gradual return to normality today but two legislators accused of inciting violence still roamed free, holding media briefings.

Curfew was relaxed in Mau ? where 10 people were killed, 200 injured and some 30 houses torched between October 14 and 22 ? and Agra, where reports of eve-teasing had set off a bout of communal violence yesterday.

“Both cities remained calm today. Curfew would be relaxed in Mau for a longer period while in Agra, markets remained open today as both communities’ leaders agreed to bury the hatchet,” said principal secretary, home, Aloke Sinha.

Despite several “raids” to arrest Mukhtar Ansari ? an Independent MLA who supports the ruling Samajwadi Party ? and BJP member of the legislative council Ramji Singh, police seemed unable to find them.

Both, however, continued to give media interviews, daring the police to arrest them.

Trying to veer public attention away from Ansari, state ministers kicked up a new controversy by accusing governor T.V. Rajeswar Rao ? who has said the police should have arrested Ansari during the rioting itself ? of “behaving like a Congressman”.

Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh suggested Rao had overstepped his limits while Ansari’s brother and party MP Afzal Ansari accused the governor of trying to implicate the Independent MLA.

Ansari has been accused in an FIR of asking rioters in Mau to attack and burn homes. A TV channel has showed him travelling in a jeep with his guards, mouthing provocative words.

The Samajwadi Party seems divided on the MLA, with a Muslim minister saying: “He is our Mohammed Shahabuddin. He is threatening to give Mulayam Singh Yadav a bad name like the Bihar don has done to Laloo Prasad Yadav. There are compulsions not to displease him. We are obviously embarrassed.”

“It is not easy to arrest Ansari,” director-general of police Yashpal Singh had admitted to reporters yesterday. But he had added: “The police would not let off either Ansari or Ramji Singh as FIRs have been registered.”

Ramji held a news conference at the party headquarters here this morning, where he challenged the police to arrest him before arresting Ansari.

In Agra, trouble began yesterday after two women were allegedly harassed by men from a different community around 4 pm. One version has it that it was a group of policemen who molested the women on the pretext of searching them.

Some 12 people were injured and 10 houses damaged as violence gripped the town for three hours.