The New Nation - Internet Edition

Agencies, New Delhi

The exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin left India for sweden claiming the conditions she has been living under in Delhi amount to "virtual house arrest" and that she has been denied urgent medical attention.

Nasrin fled Bangladesh in 1994 when a court ruled she had "deliberately and maliciously" hurt the feelings of religious Muslims. Her books remain banned in the country.

After a decade in Europe, she moved to Kolkata in 2004, where she planned to settle, but came under increasing pressure from Muslim groups' protests at her "anti-Islamic" novels and memoirs. These culminated last November in violent protests which saw her taken under government protection to a safe house in the Delhi area.

According to Nasrin, her health has deteriorated dangerously under the stress of her situation, and she has been refused proper access to doctors for a serious heart condition, as well as visits from friends. In a distraught email to journalists, Nasrin said last night that a government keen to see her leave has kept her away from doctors for what it claims are "security reasons".

Nasrin, who holds a Swedish passport, said that she now has no option but to leave India.

Cathy McCann, Asia researcher at the writers' association International PEN, said the organisation was unaware of Nasrin's health problems. "Our focus is on the impunity with which the Indian government is treating the attacks against her." She added that Nasrin's situation could be resolved if the Indian government were to issue a full condemnation of the protests.