Taslima is offered a haven in Uppsala

Stockholm, June 2: Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has arrived in Sweden where she has been offered safe haven, the Upsala Nya Tidning newspaper reported on Monday.

The city council of the university city of Uppsala, north of Stockholm will pay Nasreen a monthly stipend of 5,000 kronor ($833) and pay for her accommodation during a two-year period, the report said.

It is the second time Nasreen will live in Sweden. In 1994 she was forced to leave Bangladesh after Islamic fundamentalist groups in her native country issued a fatwa and placed a bounty on her head over the content in her writings including the novel Lajja (Shame). Nasreen, who is also a trained doctor, lived for more than a decade in Europe and the United States. She later lived in Kolkata, but last year was forced to leave West Bengal’s state capital after violent protests by Muslim fundamentalist groups who said her writings were offensive to Islam. —DPA