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Cleric offers reward for insult to author

A Muslim cleric in India has offered a reward of Rs 20,000 to anyone who blackens the face of exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, whose writings some Muslims consider blasphemous. To blacken someone’s face - most commonly with ink or shoe polish - is viewed as a major insult on the Indian subcontinent.

Last month, the communist government of India’s eastern state of West Bengal banned Nasreen’s latest book, Dwikhandito, or Split in Two, for fear the book could disturb religious peace.

“Her writings are against humanity and Islam,” SMN Rahman Barkati, the chief cleric of Calcutta’s main mosque, told a crowd of more than 10,000 attending prayers.

“Her face can be blackened with ink, paint or tar. Or she can be garlanded with shoes.”

Nasreen, who lives in the United States, was not available for comment. She was born in Bangladesh in 1962 but fled the country in 1994 after Muslim hardliners called for her death. —Reuters

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