Govt extends Taslima’s visa | Author speaks

PLEASE BEHAVE: She has been asked to be sensitive to India's traditions and its secular ethos.

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New Delhi: The Union Government has extended controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen's visa for an unspecified duration of time. The visa was to expire on February 17.

At the same time, Taslima has been told that she must ensure she is sensitive to India's traditions and its secular ethos.

While Taslima says she's grateful for being allowed to stay on but feels uncomfortable about not being allowed to meet friends, especially like minded intellectuals.

"I'm very grateful to the Indian government", she was quoted as saying by the PTI.

"It was a nice feeling getting the visa extension but the curbs on freedom of my movement and expression would remain," she said.

Taslima faces a fatwa back home in Bangladesh and has been in exile in India for the last four years.

In India, too, she has often offended some Muslim groups by her writings and statements.

Islamic groups, offended at her writings, which are critical of Islam, have been holding protests against her stay in India.

Taslima had even withdrawn some controversial portions of her book Dwikhondito to assuage hurt feelings of Muslims.

In November 2007, she was smuggled out of Kolkata and since then she has been staying at an undisclosed location in Delhi.

She was also taken to Rajasthan for a brief period. Taslima has said that she wants to stay on in India, and Kolkata was her first choice.

She has been living in exile abroad after leaving Bangladesh in 1994 when fundamentalists in issued a religious edict to kill her for writing the novel Lajja which they alleged was blasphemous.