An exiled Bangladeshi author, in hiding in India from Islamic extremists, today gained an unexpected ally when a hardline Hindu nationalist leader offered her a safe haven.

In a blurring of political and religious lines, Narendra Modi, the firebrand chief minister of Gujarat accused of colluding to murder Muslims, said that Taslima Nasreen was welcome in the western state. She had been rushed to an undisclosed location near Delhi under the protection of federal security officers.

Ms Nasreen, a 45-year-old former doctor, fled her Muslim-majority homeland of Bangladesh in 1994. In the past few days she has been passed from pillar to post by the Indian authorities since she was ushered out of Calcutta last Thursday following riots by thousands of Muslims calling for her expulsion from India.

Ms Nasreen, born into a Muslim family, had been living in the eastern city since 2004 after returning from Europe. But against the backdrop of civil unrest, chiefly surrounding the Government’s forced relocation of farmers for a chemical plant at Nandigram, she became the renewed focus of Islamic fundamentalists, who claim that her 1994 novel Lajja (Shame) and other books are blasphemous.

Muslim clerics issued a fatwa against the author, putting a 100,000 rupee (£1,200) bounty on her head. It is the fourth time that she has been the subject of a death warrant.

Some political analysts believe that the West Bengal government deliberately stoked communal tensions in Calcutta to deflect attention from the crisis at Nandigram. There have been renewed outbreaks of violence this month as protesters clashed with police.

“Now Nandigram has gone into the background and everyone is talking about Taslima,” Kuldeep Nayar, the columnist and former diplomat, said. “It is a shame for us because this is the first case of asylum-seeking in post-Independence India and the Government is too afraid of fundamentalist forces. Of all people, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) are supporting her.”

Ms Nasreen, who also has a Swedish passport, has requested Indian citizenship or residency as she tries to find more permanent refuge. After sneaking into Jaipur in a burqa at the weekend, she was rejected by the Hindu nationalist-ruled state of Rajasthan “for security reasons”.

Ms Nasreen, who wrote about state-sponsored persecution of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, has become a cause celebre for liberals and women’s rights groups. Social activists called on the Government to grant her political refugee status after her visa expires in February.

Her predicament is also an opportunity for the BJP to score political points by daring the Congress-led Government to stand up to extremist forces.

Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, the Information and Broadcasting Minister, dismissed Mr Modi’s intervention as an attempt to “atone for sins of the past”. He said: “He is trying to purify his soul.”

The controversial Gujarati leader, who is on the campaign trial to re-election, is accused of turning a blind eye to bloody riots in 2002 fuelled by his allies in rightwing Hindu groups.

The communal violence officially claimed the lives of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus but international human rights groups estimate that up to 2,000 mostly Muslim people died and tens of thousands were displaced from their homes.

The riots were triggered when a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was allegedly torched by a Muslim mob, killing 59 people. A subsequent state inquiry concluded that the fire was accidental.

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