Poet denies wedding news

Poet denies wedding news

DHAKA (Reuter): Self-exiled Bangladeshi poet Daud Haider denied yesterday he secretly married controversial compatriot writer Taslima Nasrin, whom fundamentalist Moslem clerics accuse of blasphemy.

Haider, denying a report by Dhaka's Independent newspaper, said "the report was incorrect, baseless" and intended to tarnish his name.

He told Reuters by telephone from his home in Germany he had no relations with Nasrin and he did not like her or her writings.

Nasrin's sister Moumi Yasmin told Reuters yesterday that her family was very upset by the Independent report.

"Taslima even does not know Daud Haider and the two getting married is just an absurd idea," she said. "We have had contact with Taslima and confirm that nothing of that sort has happened."

Nasrin, married and divorced twice, fled to Sweden last August after fundamentalists, angry at her reported remarks in India's Statesman newspaper that Islam's holy book, the Koran, should be "revised thoroughly", threatened to kill her.

A Dhaka court was due to begin trying her yesterday on charges of insulting Islam and hurting Moslem religious sentiments, but her lawyers said they would try to delay the proceedings.

Haider fled Bangladesh in 1974 to escape fundamentalist wrath after he was quoted as saying birth as a Moslem was a "sin."