KOLKATA, India - Security was stepped up for the exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Saturday after the controversial author was issued with a death threat, police said. The move came after radical Muslim cleric Majidulla Khan Farhad on Friday accused Nasreen of “defaming” Islam and announced an ”unlimited financial reward” to anybody who would kill her, according to the Press Trust of India.| The Indian coppers need to pay a 'visit' to Farhad. |
The death threats against the author came just over a week after Nasreen was physically attacked by radical Muslims in Hyderabad during the launch of a translation of one of her novels. Other
“Taslima is fanning communal passions in India by her writings. We will hold protests if she does not leave the country within a month,” Barkati told AFP by telephone. “Our fatwa (religious edict) against her is a death threat. We have given her a month’s time to avoid it,” he said.
However, on Saturday, the home ministry extended NasreenÂ’s visa for another six months.
Nasreen remained confined to her home on Saturday. Though she was “shocked” by the attack on her by the Muslim group in Hyderabad, Nasreen has said she has no intention of leaving India, which she described as her “second home” and “a good place to live in.” She has said she would like now to become an Indian citizen.
| She should come to the U.S. She's an American born in the wrong place. |
Nasreen, who is also a doctor, has also lived in self-exile in Europe and the United States but has lately been living in India.
It was the second death threat against the author in just a few months. In March All India Ibtehad Council, a splinter group of the influential All India Muslim Personal Law Board, offered a 500,000-rupee (12,000-dollar) bounty for the “extermination” of the ”notorious woman.”