Author: AFP
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: February 16, 2008
URL: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080216/world/india_religion_culture_bangladesh_nasreen_28
Scores of Muslims led by a radical cleric
protested Friday against India's decision to extend the visa of threatened
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who is in hiding in New Delhi.
"Taslima has hurt the sentiments of Muslims
in India. She must be deported from India immediately," Syed Nuroor Rehman
Barkati, senior cleric at the Tipu Sultan mosque in the heart of the eastern
city of Kolkata, told AFP.
Nasreen fled Kolkata in November after radical
Muslims protested against "anti-Islamic" passages in her works.
Barkati had offered money in previous years
to see the 45-year-old blackened with tar, garlanded with shoes -- considered
an insulting gesture -- and driven out of the Bengali-speaking city she adopted
as her home by in 2004, according to reports in the Indian media.
In August, he also backed an order by another
radical cleric that offered an "unlimited financial reward" to anybody
who would kill her.
Barkati organised a rally at the mosque after
Friday prayers at which nearly 2,000 gathered. Most of the worshippers were
not part of the anti-Nasreen rally, which saw some 100-odd protesters carrying
placards that read "We want Taslima Nasreen to leave India."
India on Thursday extended Nasreen's visa,
set to expire this weekend, but warned the writer not to "hurt the sentiments"
of India's religious communities, a reference to the nation's 140 million
Muslims.
The violent protests over her writing led
to the army's deployment in Kolkata, and she now lives under federal protection
at an undisclosed location in New Delhi.
Nasreen has said she is very depressed in
hiding, describing her condition as virtual house arrest.
The 45-year-old author was forced to leave
Bangladesh in 1994 after extremist Muslims accused her of blasphemy over her
novel "Lajja" or "Shame", which depicts the life of a
Hindu family persecuted by Muslims in Bangladesh.
She has been seeking permanent residence in
India, where she moved after spending time in Europe and the United States,
but so far the government has only granted her six-month visas.
