Taslima flees, calls Indian govt fundamentalist

FLIGHT TO SAFETY: Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen says she can't reveal destination.

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Keywords: Artists, Writers

New Delhi: Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen arrived in Europe on Wednesday after leaving India for medical treatment.

Talking to PTI from Heathrow Airport in London, Taslima said she was waiting for a connecting flight but couldn’t reveal her destination.

"If I disclose my destination my security will be compromised. My face has now become recognisable and I could be target of religious fundamentalists," she said.

Taslima, facing protests, was kept incognito for nearly four months in a place near New Delhi. Security restrictions were imposed on her movement even in Kolkata before she was forced out of the city last year following violent protests.

"The (Indian) government is no better than religious fundamentalists," she told PTI. "I was put under tremendous stress but I could not speak out as I was under their (government) surveillance and could be harassed by them."

Nasreen has a heart condition and planned to see a doctor, said Maria Modig, vice president of Svenska PEN, the Swedish branch of the international writers' association.

"She has landed safely in Europe," Modig told Reuters. "She doesn't want to say where in Europe. But she wants us to say that she feels safe now and will also see a doctor and will try to see some friends."

Speaking to CNN-IBN on Tuesday, Taslima had said she was being “forced” out of India. “I am forced to leave India to get necessary treatment and save at least the rest of my body which has not yet been damaged from this extreme stress that I went through over these last several months,” she said.

PTI reports Taslima may be heading towards Sweden. She holds a permanent Swedish residency visa and Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter says she likely to take refuge in the country.

Taslima went to Sweden in 1994 to escape death threats from religious fundamentalists, who alleged her novel Lajja is blasphemous. She went to Sweden again in 1999.

(With PTI, Reuters and IANS)