India:The exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin went into hiding in the Indian capital last night after being hounded across the country accused of insulting Muslims.
Nasrin, who has been living on a tourist visa in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) since 2004, was bundled from her home last week after protests from Muslim groups led to riots.
The 45-year-old was taken to a safe house in Rajasthan for a night only to be then moved to a government apartment in Delhi, guarded by police.
In brief telephone interviews with journalists, Nasrin said she wanted "to head back home as soon as possible". She added: "I have no place to go. India is my home and I would like to keep living in this country until I die."
Nasrin fled Bangladesh in 1994 when a court ruled she had "deliberately and maliciously" offended Muslims with her Bengali-language novel Lajja (Shame),written following riots between Muslims and Hindus. In Bangladesh her books are banned.
She moved to Kolkata after a decade of travelling around Europe in search of sanctuary. However, her stay in India has been punctuated by protests from Muslim groups incensed by allegations she had called for the rewriting of the Koran and by her books, which question the lot of women in Islamic societies in the subcontinent. In August she was attacked by Muslims groups at the launch of her latest book, Shodh (Getting Even)in the southern city of Hyderabad.
Some clerics have demanded her expulsion. At a rally in Kolkata earlier this year a Muslim preacher said the person who killed her would receive 100,000 rupees (€1,700). Muslim intellectuals say the issue is Nasrin's "extreme liberal views".
"She has called for the Koran to be changed. She says that religion is obsolete. She writes about the sexual relations she has had with other men. These views are too liberal for our society. They belong in the West and so does she," said Zafarul-Islam Khan, editor of the Milli Gazette, a newspaper widely read among India's 140 million Muslims.
Fellow writers and thinkers have rallied to her cause, saying the right to free expression should trump religious sensitivities.
"A writer should have the freedom to challenge and provoke. Her visa runs out in February but the Indian government should give Taslima citizenship," said Mahasweta Devi, a noted author and social activist.