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."