Have not left India, will be back when feel safe: Taslima Nasreen

Kolkata, June 3: Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who has relocated to the US, on Wednesday said she hasn't left India permanently and would return to the country when she felt safe.

In a post on her Twitter handle, Nasreen said she was "worried" after receiving threats from Muslim fundamentalists who had killed atheist bloggers in Bangladesh.

"Was threatened by Islamists who killed atheist bloggers in B'desh. Worried," she said in her Twitter post.

Nasreen, who has been living in Delhi for years, said she had sought to meet the government of India representatives, but did not get any appointment.

"Wanted to meet GOI. No appointment. Left. Will be back when feel safe," she tweeted.

In another tweet, the author said she often went to the US to give lectures and meet her family members.

"I havn't left India permanently. Indian govt always provides security. Pet cat is waiting," she said.

A New York-based think tank on Monday said it has relocated Nasreen to "safety" in the US amid death threats from Islamist radicals.

The Center for Inquiry assisted in relocating the award-winning writer and human rights activist to the US last week after she was "specifically named as an imminent target by the same extremists responsible for the murders of Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman and Ananta Bijoy Das".

"Another freethinker writer-blogger was hacked to death in Bangladesh this morning. Bangladesh is worse than Pakistan," she tweeted following the brutal murder of blogger Ananta Bijoy Das on May 12.

But someone with the Twitter identity oneofthemuslims @jihadforkhilafa wrote back: "@taslimanasreen u r also among the 84 who r on the hitlist. count ur days."

The tweet was referring to a list submitted to Bangladesh's interior ministry in 2013 by a radical group asking for the writer-bloggers to be punished for their blasphemous comments.

Exiled from Bangladesh in 1994 for "hurting religious sentiments" with her novel "Lajja", Nasreen took refuge in Kolkata in 2004.

But after violent protests in the city in November 2007, the erstwhile Left Front government whisked her away to New Delhi. Since then she was mostly residing in the national capital under tight security, with the government extending her visa from time to time.

IANS