Date:26/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/26/stories/2007122661430100.htm

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Taslima can return to Kolkata, says Basu

Special Correspondent

“But Centre must ensure her security”

KOLKATA: Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who left the city on November 22 and is now lodged in an undisclosed location, is “welcome to return to Kolkata if she chooses to, but the Centre has to ensure her security here,” veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Jyoti Basu has said.

“I am grateful that Jyoti Basu has understood my situation and my desire to return to Kolkata. This has rekindled the hope of being able to get back to the city that is my home,” Ms. Nasreen told The Hindu from the “safe-house” where she was put up.

“I read from newspapers that she wants to come back to Kolkata but it is for the Centre to provide her the security,” Mr. Basu said. “We have been saying that it [her return] depends on the Centre,” he told journalists at his Salt Lake residence here on Tuesday.

“Pranab Mukherjee has taken a good stand,” he said, referring to the External Affairs Minister’s statement in Parliament last month on Ms. Nasreen’s future in the country. “But she [Ms. Nasreen] is also not in a good frame of mind. We [the State government] have said that we have left the matter [of her return] to the Centre. Let us see how it decides,” Mr. Basu said.

On her present situation, Ms. Nasreen said: “I do not think anything has happened in the country that calls for the strict security that I have been provided. I have been confined here and though I understand the need for protection, is there really any need for such elaborate security?”

There is a need for providing security to Ms. Nasreen because “there are people who think they will get closer to God by killing,” Mr. Basu said. “If she is given proper security, such situations can be prevented,” he added.

“Starting from anti-socials, there are those who have opposed her writings … We were forced to ban her book ‘Dwikhandita’ [Split in Two] as no Muslim can accept what she has written about their religion; about the Koran and Prophet Muhammad,” Mr. Basu said.

“I am aware that she likes Kolkata. She has even met me twice and presented me her book ‘Dwikhandita,” he recalled.

Violence erupted in parts of the city on November 21 following protests by supporters of the All-India Minority Forum, inflamed by her writings and demanding revocation of Ms. Nasreen’s visa that expires on February 17, 2008.

The author left the following day for Jaipur from where she was taken a day later to the ‘safe-house’ in an undisclosed location.