Taslima should be expatriated from India: Religious leaders

Deoband, UP, Jan 11 (UNI) There seems to be no respite for exiled Bagladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen as religious Muslim leaders once again today targetted her demanding that the Centre expatriate her from India.

Coming down harshly on the controversial writer, who is presently staying at an undisclosed location in Delhi, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind General Secretary Maulana Mahmood Madani demanded that the Centre expatriate Ms Nasreen from the country at the earliest.

Maulana Madani said soon a delegation comprising religious leaders of prominent Muslim religious groups would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and urge him to be expatriate Ms Nasreen from India immediately.

''India is country of varied religious beliefs and no religious community would bear the insult of its God,'' the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind leader said.

He said Ms Nasreen had the citizenship of Netherlands also and as she had been staying in India for almost four years now, she should go and visit Netherlands for some days as well.

Ms Nasreen had neither withdrawn the allegedly offending portions from her book 'Dwikhondito' nor had she apologised, the Maulana added.

Seconding Maulana Madani's views, Maulana Andullah Javed of Darul-uloom said no Muslim would want Taslima Nasreen to be given shelter in India. Terming her writings as ''immoral and against the Indian Culture'', the Darul-uloom leader said any Muslim would hate her and her writings.

Controversy does not seem to leave Ms Nasreen, who was bundled out of Kolkata in November last year following widespread violent protests by a Muslim group for her alleged anti-Islam writings.

The writer since November had been under the Centre's protection in a government house at an undisclosed location in Delhi.

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