The Dhaka court, in a revival of the 1994 case against her, also ordered yesterday that the novelist's property be seized.

``We have received the order from the court and a police officer has been assigned the job to arrest her,'' a duty officer of Dhaka's Motijheel police station said.

Nasreen had fled Bangladesh for Sweden in August 1994 after the court charged her with ``deliberately and maliciously hurting Muslim sentiments''.

She is facing renewed threats of death from Muslim extremists who have launched street protests and urged the government to locate and punish her.

Meanwhile, Nasreen's family today said they would take legal counsel from Kamal Hossain whose firm was looking after the court cases against the author.

``We are waiting for Hossain's return from abroad. We would take his legal counsel in view of the courtorder,'' Faizul Kabir, the 36-year-old writer's elder brother said at the author's downtown apartment.

Advocate Abdul Quayyam, pleading on behalf of complainant Joynal Abedin Babul, said the case against Nasreen was filed in May 1994 but since then she had not appeared in court.

In his submission to the court, Quayyam said Nasreen hurt the religious faith of his client in a column written by her wherein she ``termed Muslims illiterate, ignorant and uncivilized.''

After his client filed a defamation case against her, the court took cognizance of the case but in the meantime, she left for Europe in self-exile, Quayyam added.

He pleaded that the author might leave the country again if execution of the earlier warrant and attachment of her property were not ordered by the court.

In his petition, complainant Abedin Babul had charged Nasreen with attacking Islam in her book Nirbachita Columns, a collection of articles by her published in many newspapers.

Meanwhile, since Nasreen's return toBangladesh, the fundamentalist Jammat-e-Islami party and other splinter radical Islamic groups, have accused the government of ``conspiring'' to allow her return home.

In their continued protests, these right-wing groups have reiterated their demand that Nasreen be arrested and put to death for alleged blasphemy.