New Delhi, Feb. 8: The National Human Rights Commission has sent the Union home secretary and the Delhi police chief notices asking them to reply to allegations that Taslima Nasreen was being “virtually kept under solitary confinement”.

The notice, which follows complaints from writers and publishers, has asked the two officials to reply within two weeks. Taslima’s visa expires on August 17.

A group of writers led by Arun Kumar Maheshwari had filed a complaint alleging that the Bangladeshi author was virtually “undergoing solitary confinement” in a government safe house, said to be somewhere in Haryana.

The 45-year-old isn’t being allowed to communicate with anyone except government officials and is going through “great agony”, the complaint said. The complainants argued that foreigners, too, are entitled to protection under Article 21 of the Constitution.

The commission said the allegations, if true, did “seriously affect human rights” and ordered that copies of the complaint be sent to the two officials. The home ministry, though, was mum on the notice. “We have no comments to make on Taslima,” an official said.

The writers and publishers who lodged the complaint today held an opinion poll on the writer at the Delhi book fair.

“We asked 5,000 people if she should be under house arrest, whether her visa should be extended, if she should apologise to politicians and fundamentalists for her writings and if she had insulted any religion. Most of the 2,500 people who have filled in the forms so far have favoured Taslima,” Maheshwari said. The results will be sent to the President and the commission.