NEW DELHI/KOLKATA, 26 November 2007 — The fate of Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, hounded out of Kolkata and Jaipur by activists, remained uncertain yesterday even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) played her savior by demanding the status of political refugee and citizenship for the exiled writer.
In an interview to Karan Thapar, broadcast on CNN-IBN, Taslima, who has been staying in a guest house run by the Rajasthan government since she arrived here Friday night, said that despite the fear of some people stalking her she will love to live in India.
“It’s not safe. But I will love to live in India,” Taslima said. Fundamentalists are everywhere, be it in Bangladesh or in Europe, she said.
Taslima, who lived in Kolkata since 2004, wants to return to her home. “I miss my home, I miss my Kolkata,” she said. She fled Bangladesh in 1994 after some people describing her writings as blasphemous, demanded her “execution.” After spending years in Europe and United States, she decided to stay in India. Now, she said: “I don’t want to leave India for any other country.” Her Indian visa is valid till February 2008.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said yesterday that Taslima had never been forced out of the state. Speaking in Siliguri (West Bengal), he said: “The state had never forced her to leave West Bengal.”
She is free to return whenever she liked and the state government would make “all arrangements,” he said. Taslima confessed that the last two days had been “traumatic” for her, but added she would still like to be in India.
She has remained confined to the Rajasthan House in the heart of Delhi for the last 36 hours. The author was virtually off-limits to the media with security personnel not allowing any outsiders to meet her.
A tight security cordon of the Rajasthan Armed Constabulary and Delhi Armed Police was thrown around her following threats to her life. The government has already provided her ‘Y’ category security.
“The center has to decide how long she will stay here. Till the center’s decision, she remains a guest of the Rajasthan government,” a state government official told IANS.
She was hurriedly brought to the capital from Jaipur after the All India Milli Council threatened to hold protests if the writer was kept in Rajasthan for long.
India’s main opposition BJP that is widely seen as pro-Hindu came to the rescue of the beleaguered writer as it made a strong pitch for granting her the status of a political refugee and Indian citizenship.
“Taslima did not hurt the sentiments of any community. She exposed the plight of women in her novels and it was not her personal views,” senior BJP leader and former union minister C.H. Vidyasagar Rao said in Hyderabad yesterday.
“The center should consider giving Taslima Indian citizenship if such a request comes from her,” he added.
Her “eviction” from West Bengal, according to BJP, has “exposed the so-called secularism of CPI-M.”
