New Delhi: India on Thursday extended the visa of Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen beyond February 17 but warned her that she should be “sensitive” to the country’s traditions.
"The Government of India has decided to extend the visa,” said External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Navtej Sarna. Taslima’s six-month visa expires on Sunday.
"It is incumbent on those who are welcomed as guests in India that they remain sensitive to India’s traditions and do not conduct themselves in a manner that either affects our relations with other countries or cause hurt to our secular ethos," said Sarna.
Taslima is "our guest and in keeping with our traditions, we have offered her the same privileges", he said.
He added that such guests should "not undertake actions that could hurt the sentiments of the many communities that make up our multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation"
Speaking to CNN-IBN, Taslima expressed her “gratitude” to the Government for extending her visa and said she would like to return to Kolkata.
“I am a people’s person but I have hardly met anybody in the past few months. This is affecting my creative output as a writer. I certainly want to return to Kolkata,” said the writer who is living in a secret location in Delhi.
“I’m happy to get an extension but unhappy as I still can't go to Kolkata. I have been asked to continue staying the safe house and there will be restrictions on the people meeting me. I express my gratitude to the Government and the people, including intelectuals who stood by me," she said.
Nasreen, 45, left Kolkata in November 2007 after protests by a Islamic group and has been living in a safe-house in Delhi for security reasons.
The author has been living in exile abroad after leaving Bangladesh in 1994 when fundamentalists in issued a religious edict to kill her for writing the novel Lajja which they alleged was blasphemous.
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