Taslima's appeal: 'Please let me live in Kolkata'

TASLIMA GETS ULTIMATUM: The Centre sent a representative to tell Taslima to leave India.

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New Delhi: Controversial Bangladeshi author, Taslima Nasreen has nowhere to go and the Indian Government went about in a convoluted way to tell her to leave the country.

Taslima was shifted out of Kolkata after outbreak of large-scale violence in the city during a 'shutdown' called by a Muslim outfit — All India Minority Forum — for cancelling her visa, which was extended by the Government till February 17 next.

She has angered conservative Muslims by her writing and fled her homeland in 1994 after radical Muslims demanded her execution. She was attacked by activists of Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen at a book release function on August 9 this year in Hyderabad.

In an exclusive telephone conversation with CNN-IBN this is what she had to say.

Taslima Nasreen: The Central Government came to me and told me that I will not be able to go back to Kolkata now. When I asked the person who came to deliver the news when will I be able to go back to Kolkata, he said that he did not know.

Then I asked him whether I could live a normal life in Delhi if I cannot live in Kolkata and he said that I would not be able to lead a normal life in Delhi either.

I hope the Government will be able to reconsider the issue and I will be able to go back to Kolkata. If I can have security in Kolkata, then I can live there.

However, if I cannot go back to Kolkata, then I want to have a normal life in Delhi. I know that the people who live in Kolkata want me to come back and live there.

I love Kolkata and I have got support, ,solidarity and sympathy from the people there. I know that nothing would happen if I go back to the city and start living there. I have a home there and I am missing my home.

I am hoping that the Government will rethink this and let me go back to my home and will allow me to have a normal life there.

No writer likes to censor his or her work and I was forced to delete certain paragraphs of my work. I hope that nobody will be angry with me and that I will be able to live a peaceful life in Kolkata.