MIRED IN controversy and forced to live in a safe house by the Centre, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has decided to leave the country for several months.

Media reports suggest that the author is seeking treatment abroad. She was said to have met officials in the Ministry of External Affairs and announced her decision to travel abroad.

 

Nasreen was hounded out of West Bengal after four years of living in the state by a section of people who wanted her visa to be scrapped and demanded that she be thrown out of the country for offending the sentiments of the Muslim community through her writings. A riot like situation developed in November 2007 in Kolkata and the Army had to be called out to quell the disturbances in the city where buses and cars were torched and mobs fought pitched battles with the police and the Rapid Action Force.

 

The Bangladeshi writer was hustled out of Kolkata and put on a flight to Jaipur where another hostile crowd demanded that she be thrown out. Following political mud slinging between the BJP in power in Rajasthan and Left Front in West Bengal, Nasreen was whisked away to New Delhi in a cloak and dagger operation and put up in a safe house where she continues to remain. Her visa was extended in February, bur the Ministry of External Affairs cautioned her to be sensitive to India's traditions and its secular ethos. She has not been allowed to go back to Kolkata despite repeated pleas by her. She has been complaining of having to stay in isolation in New Delhi.

 

The author, however, has not disclosed where she intends to go.