|
New Delhi:
Even as the government is yet to decide on her plea for residential
permit, controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin may have to
leave India soon and apply for a fresh visa because her travel
document expires in the middle of next month.
The 47-year-old doctor-turned-writer is also trying for a permanent
residency in the country. Her visa is valid till August 16. Her
application for granting a permanent residency in the country has
been hanging in balance for years together.
Official sources said the government has already made it clear that
Taslima's visa cannot be extended beyond August 16, 2010 as her
travel document had been issued under the category 'Miscellaneous'.
Taslima, a Swedish passport-holder, had sought visa under the
miscellaneous category in 2005 and it has since been extended
initially for a year and later for six months. The visa under this
category cannot be extended beyond five years.
She has been conveyed that she should seek a fresh visa from a third
country after which she could visit India again, the sources said.
Taslima, who has been in and out of the country after she was
dramatically bundled out of West Bengal in November 2007 in the wake
of protests by radical Muslim groups, came from London in the wee
hours of Sunday last and was immediately whisked away to a safe
location.
The future plans of the writer, who shot to fame with her
controversial book 'Lajja' in 1994, were not immediately known.
The writer has been told that she could stay in some other country
for a few days and later apply afresh for the visa under the same
category, pending her request for a permanent residency in the
country, the sources said.
The writer had earlier expressed her desire to visit Kolkata but it
has been turned down on the ground that radical elements may try to
harm her, the sources said.
Taslima had earlier left India on March 18, 2008, for Sweden after
she was kept at an undisclosed place here for more than four months.
She had not been allowed to see any visitor during the period and
described her confinement as "a chamber of death".
Recipient of various awards, she was shifted from her Kolkata
residence after violent protests in the eastern metropolis over her
controversial book "Dwikhondito" (divided into two). Certain
references in the book had earned the wrath of some Muslim
organisations which demanded that she be asked to leave the
Left-ruled state.
Taslima has lived in exile in many countries including France,
Sweden, the US and India since leaving her home in Dhaka in a cloak
of secrecy in 1994. During her stay in India in the last five years,
she has periodically travelled abroad with the last trip being in
August 2009.
|
Shutters
down in Malegaon as dead cows found in mysterious conditions
International declared Kosovo's independence ‘legal’: 
Urdu
Media : Suffering in silence: 
UN double
standard on Palestinian issue condemned: 
Evidence
of water in moon minerals found:
CBI
summons Gujarat Home Minister in fake encounter case: 
Comment on this article