NEW DELHI (AFP) — Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen Thursday said she was ordered to go into hiding in India to avoid renewed protests over her "anti-Islamic" writings, the Press Trust of India reported.
Nasreen told the domestic news agency by telephone that she would "not be allowed to return to Kolkata for now."
The 45-year-old writer, who fled Bangladesh in 1994 following death threats from fundamentalist Islamic groups, has lived in the eastern Indian city since 2004, after spending time in Europe and the United States.
Nasreen, speaking from an undisclosed safe house in New Delhi, said she protested against the restrictions allegedly imposed on her by unspecified Indian agencies.
"I told the government officials that I am not a criminal that I will not be allowed to return to Kolkata," PTI quoted her as saying.
"I told the officials that I be allowed to lead a normal life at least in New Delhi," she said.
Nasreen alleged she was being held against her will.
"I have been put into solitary confinement.... I have not done anything wrong. Why should I not be able to meet my friends and relatives and I have to live in Kolkata," PTI quoted the author as saying.
Nasreen last month was forced to leave the bustling Indian city which shares the same language as Bangladesh following violent protests that led to the army's deployment there.
A senior official from India's home ministry, which is in charge of her security, rejected the purported charges.
"The entire exercise is to keep Ms. Nasreen safe, very, very safe, even in New Delhi," the officer told AFP on the condition that she was not identified by name or rank.
India has pledged to protect Nasreen and moved her to a safe house in the capital last month after the protests.
West Bengal state, where Kolkata is located, banned her book "Dikhandito" ("Split into Two") in 2003 after protests by Muslims, but a court lifted the ban in 2005.
Nasreen said the controversial autobiographical passages were based on her "memories of Bangladesh in the 1980s" when secular constitutional guarantees were under attack.
She recently offered to remove some of the controversial passages.
Nasreen fled her homeland after being accused of blasphemy for her 1994 novel "Lajja," or "Shame," which depicts violence against minority Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
She holds a Swedish passport but has been seeking permanent residence in Hindu-majority, but officially secular, India.
So far the government, fearful of angering the nation's 140-million Muslims, has only granted her six-month visa extensions.
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