India not to renew Nasreen visa

NEW DELHI: Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen, forced to flee her homeland by Muslim extremists, today said 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. “I don’t know where I will go if India does not give me shelter,” Nasreen told AFP by telephone from the Indian capital. Nasreen was forced to flee Bangladesh in 1994 after radical Muslims accused her of blasphemy over her novel “Lajja” (Shame), in which a Hindu family is persecuted by Muslims.