Muslim activists on Thursday attacked controversial and self-exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen at a book launch in southern India, police and witnesses said. Nasreen was on the stage at the press club in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh state, when about 60 protesters from a regional Muslim political party forced their way in. | The Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen activists, led by three state legislators, broke up the function, police said. |
Television footage showed activists hitting Nasreen with a bunch of flowers, throwing a satchel at her and threatening to lob chairs. Activists also snatched copies of her translated book lying on a table and threw them at her, witnesses said.
| The Bangladeshi author has been living in India since fleeing her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims decried her writings as blasphemous and demanded her execution. |
The Bangladeshi author has been living in India since fleeing her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims decried her writings as blasphemous and demanded her execution. The activists shouted slogans against Nasreen, condemning her for allegedly un-Islamic writing, as they overturned chairs and broke flowerpots and vases at the venue, witnesses said.