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Rally in Dhaka against Taslima's secret return

Hundreds of Islamic radicals took to the streets on Tuesday, demanding death to novelist Taslima Nasrin who is reported to have returned home after four years in exile in Europe.

"Hang the infidel to death," shouted more than 500 protesters from the Islamic Constitution Movement as they marched through central Dhaka, the capital.

Newspapers reported that Nasrin, 36, secretly flew into Dhaka from New York on Monday with her mother, who is suffering from cancer.

Immigration officials at Dhaka International Airport said a person named Nasrin T was listed among those who arrived by Biman, the national airline, from New York. They refused to give details.

A woman at Nasrin's apartment in Dhaka denied that the author had returned home. "Taslima's mother and father have returned from New York. But she did not," the woman said in a telephone interview. She claimed to be Nasrin's relative and the caretaker of the apartment, but refused to give her name.

The author's whereabouts in Bangladesh are unknown.

Nasrin is not officially barred from returning home, but authorities fear street protests by Muslim fundamentalists who were angered by her novel Lajja (Shame) and have been baying for her blood. She has been in hiding ever since, mainly in Europe.

UNI

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