New Delhi: On the day the West Bengal government said she "was free to come back", Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen dismissed as "lies" claims that she chose to leave Kolkata in the first place.
Taslima said that she didn’t know she was headed for Jaipur till the flight ticket was handed to her at Kolkata airport on Thursday by a senior police official. "They are liars. Everybody is telling lies," said Taslima when asked about claims by two Kolkata-based businessmen that they had facilitated her departure, following last week’s violence in Kolkata, on her request.
Later, West Bengal Home secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray said in Kolkata that Taslima could return and "there are security arrangements for her". Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee assured Taslima that there would be "no problem" in extending her India visa, if she wanted to. "In fact, her visa had been extended till February next year. When she applies again, we will definitely consider it," said Mukherjee.
In Delhi, looking tense, and chatting to Rajasthan government officials at Rajasthan House here, Taslima said, "Nothing happens to MF Hussain who has done so many things, while everybody is after my life."
Hussain has often been the target of extremist Hindu organisations for his paintings of Hindu goddesses, while Taslima was forced out of Bangladesh after her book Lajja that Muslim fundamentalists claimed was against Islam. Taslima, however, added that "she still felt secure in India".
Admitting that she didn’t know where Home Ministry officials would lodge her tomorrow, Taslima reiterated that she wanted to return to Kolkata. "I like Kolkata," she said.
According to sources, Taslima’s request – she conveyed this to BJP leader Prakash Javdekar who visited her on Saturday – is currently being discussed in negotiations between External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the West Bengal Government. "But the Left front government is not very keen to take her back," said the sources.
Taslima, meanwhile, praised Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and her state officials for "taking very good care" of her over the last two days. Revealing that she spoke to Raje on Saturday evening, Taslima said, "Only a woman can understand another woman’s problems."
Confirming that Taslima had never wanted to leave Kolkata in the first place, officials accompanying her revealed that she had initially refused to budge when West Bengal government officials told her that she should leave following the violence in Kolkata.
On Thursday, Kolkata police officials reached her house to tell her that she had to leave immediately and a car was waiting for her, they said. At the airport, a senior police official handed over two air tickets – for her and a relative who accompanied her. That, they said, was when Taslima realised she was headed to Jaipur.
This website’s newspaper had reported on Saturday that Shree Cement Ltd head HM Bangur and leather exporter Sandeep Bhutoria had been used by West Bengal police to facilitate Taslima’s exit from the state. Bhutoria had claimed that Nasreen had wanted to go to Jaipur.
But while Taslima admitted that she knew Bhutoria, she denied any such request was made.
Source: samachar.com
