Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen said she was ordered to go into hiding in India to avoid renewed protests over her "anti-Islamic" writings.

Nasreen said that she would not be allowed to return to Kolkata for now.

Nasreen, speaking from an undisclosed safe house in New Delhi, said she protested against the restrictions allegedly imposed on her by unspecified Indian agencies.

I told the government officials that I am not a criminal that I will not be allowed to return to Kolkata. I told the officials that I be allowed to lead a normal life at least in New Delhi, she said.

Nasreen alleged she was being held against her will: I have been put into solitary confinement.... I have not done anything wrong. Why should I not be able to meet my friends and relatives and I have to live in Kolkata.

A senior official from India's home ministry, which is in charge of her security, rejected the purported charges. The entire exercise is to keep Ms. Nasreen safe, very, very safe, even in New Delhi, the officer told AFP on the condition that she was not identified by name or rank.

India has renewed the visa of Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, in hiding in India after death threats from Islamic groups over her work.

But it warned the author not to do anything that would "hurt the sentiments" of India's religious communities, an apparent reference to the nation's 140 million Muslims.

It is incumbent on those who are welcomed as guests in India that they remain sensitive to India's traditions, said a statement on the visa extension from India's foreign ministry: We expect that they do not undertake actions that could hurt the sentiments of the many communities that make up our multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation.

Nasreen has said she is very depressed in hiding, describing her condition as virtual house arrest, most recently in an article in the French newspaper Le Monde: I am merely a disembodied voice. Those who once stood by me have disappeared into the darkness.

Scores of Muslims led by a radical cleric have protested 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.

The All India Minority Forum have accused the Indian government of trying to protect writer Taslima Nasreen though she has hurt sentiments of Muslims in the country.

Taslima has not only hurt the sentiments of Muslims, but she has defamed the Indian Constitution. The government should not extend her visa and she should move out of this country immediately, president of the Forum Idris Ali told a rally organised by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

Nearly 500 delegates from all over the country spoke in the open session in front of 150,000 people gathered to hear them after the completion of the two-day all India seminar organised by the Board.

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has left India for Sweden after being hounded into hiding by death threats from militants, her publisher and friends told AFP.

Taslima Nasreen flew out of New Delhi this afternoon to Europe for medical treatment, her publisher Sibani Mukherjee told AFP.

She had been seeking permanent residence in India, where she moved after spending time in Europe and the United States, but New Delhi has been fearful of a Muslim backlash. The writer was forced to flee the eastern city of Kolkata, which she adopted as her home in 2004, in November after receiving death threats from Indian Muslims, and has since been living in hiding in the capital New Delhi

Update: Return

25th May 2008

Taslima Nasreen has said that her health has improved and that she intends to return to India in August

Update: Swedish Safe Haven

25th May 2008

Taslima Nasreen has been granted a two-year safe haven in the Swedish town of Uppsala,

She had been seeking permanent residence in India, but New Delhi had stalled the request.

Update: Returning to India

12th August 2008

Taslima Nasreen, on the run from death threats from Islamic militants, has returned to India to renew her visa, a rights activist said Saturday.

Sujato Bhadra, a human rights activist close to the writer said: She has come from Sweden after she got the assurance from the Indian authorities that her visa would be extended. She will apply for the visa in a few days.

Update: Settled on Paris

4th January 2009. See article from google.com

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, under threat of death from Islamist extremists who accuse her of blasphemy in her writings, is to take up residence in Paris, the city hall said.

Nasreen, who was made an honorary citizen of Paris in July 2008 when Paris Mayor Bertrand said:  You are at home here, in the city where it was proclaimed that men are born and remain free and equal and nobody can be condemned for their beliefs

Angry over extension of visa to controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, a federation of Muslim organisations in West Bengal threatened countrywide agitation.

Dubbing Taslima as an enemy of Islam, president of Milli Ittehad Parishad, Haji Abdul Aziz here said the Centre's decision would create unrest countrywide.

The decision has hurt sentiments of Muslims in India and unless it is reversed, we will launch a countrywide agitation to force the government to concede our demands, All-India Minority Forum president Idris Ali threatened. Ali said extension of Taslima's visa amounted to insulting Islam.

Taslima, who shot into fame with her controversial book 'Lajja' (Shame) in 1993, has been a target of Islamic fundamentalists. She had returned to India recently to seek extension of her visa and is now residing at an undisclosed location.

Update: Last Visa

18th February 2010. See article from google.com

Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen, forced to flee her homeland by Muslim extremists, said Wednesday that India had told her it will no longer renew her residence visa after the current one expires.

Nasreen, who has been unable to live full-time in India because of opposition from Muslim hardliners in the country, said the Indian government had renewed her temporary six-month residence permit.

But 47-year-old author, who has spent the past two years mainly in the United States, said the government told her it was the last time the permit would be extended.

Two people have been reported killed in riots against Humanist writer Taslima Nasrin in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. The rioters were protesting supposed anti-Islamic statements made in a local newspaper article attributed to Nasrin.

According to local news reports, thousands of Muslims took to the streets in the town of Shimoga, vandalising shops and damaging vehicles. The rioters were protesting an article in Kannada Prabha, a daily newspaper in Karnataka. The riots subsequently spread to neighbouring areas and were joined by Hindu groups. A group of masked men set fire to the offices of Kannada Prabha and the offices of another newspaper. According to reports from the BBC, the riots led to 50 arrests and injuries to about 50 people.

The Kannada Prabha article, which was printed without Taslima's knowledge, criticized the traditional Muslim veil, describing it as a symbol of women's oppression.

The cancellation of the release party for Taslima Nasreen's autobiography at the Kolkata Book Fair has thrown the spotlight on the destructive clout of religious fanatics in a city once known for savouring cultural pluralism.

Coupled with the Salman Rushdie controversy - when the Booker awardee had to call off his visit and then his much-anticipated video address at the Jaipur Literature Festival following security threats triggered by some Islamic groups' protest - would go down as another instance of Indian authorities and parties kowtowing before religious rabblerousers.

While the Rushdie episode saw the political parties and the government, in the words of novelist Vikram Seth, knuckling under an enforced disgrace because of power and politics, the only difference here was that publishers went ahead with the launch of the book at the fair, despite the hostile attitude of organisers.

The seventh volume of Nasreen's book Nirbasan (Exile), which deals with her life after exile from Kolkata in 2007 and which almost nobody had read before the release, saw religious fundamentalists protesting against the launch.

This was nothing new for the Bangladesh-born author, a doctor by profession in the early 80s, who was forced to leave her country in 1994 after there was widespread agitation against her novel Lajja (Shame), which a section of people saw as an assault on Islam.

Hours before the release function, the organisers telephoned the publishers, People's Book Society, asking them to cancel the programme due to logistical problems. But later it transpired that some Islamic groups had approached the authorities and the city police against the book release.

A top official of the organising body, Publishers' and Book Sellers' Guild, confirmed the development saying:

We cannot allow any such thing to happen inside the Book Fair premises which can hurt the interest of the common people coming to the fair. We cannot allow anything that may hurt the religious sentiments of any community.

Update: Cancer of Censorship

11th February 2012. See article from guardian.co.uk

Taslima Nasreen commented to the Times of India:

You may wonder why the authority tries to ban me or ban my book launch. They believe I am anti-Islam, and supporting me or allowing me entry to the country or the state or the city or the book fair would send a wrong message to the Muslim fanatics. They fear they would lose the Muslim vote. They do not want to take the risk of a single Muslim vote.

The author believes the appetite for censorship is growing in India, she said. With Rushdie prevented by fears of violence from attending or even speaking via video link at the Jaipur event in January, Nasrin says we are witnessing the disturbing victory of Islamic gangsters in Jaipur and Kolkata. I am wondering how to stop this growing cancer from spreading, she said. According to Nasrin, intolerance is growing

because the government does not take action against intolerant fanatics and the fanatics are forgiven for whatever violence they commit in the name of religion ... India needs to secularise the states, judiciary and educational systems. People need to learn about the principles of democracy, freedom of expression, human rights and humanism. They need to be enlightened. In the name of 'Indian secularism', irrational blind faith and the barbarity of all religions seem to be accepted and respected equally.