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| India-Pakistan |
| Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen says will leave India |
| 2008-03-18 |
| Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen said on Monday she was leaving India because of failing health after being forced to live in a secret hideaway without any visitors for nearly four months. Violent protests by Muslim groups in November forced Indian authorities to rush out the controversial writer from her home in Kolkata where she lived for four years. After moving her around for a while, the authorities put her in an undisclosed "safe house" in New Delhi, where she only has a mobile phone, a laptop and a television set, but no visitors are allowed. "I have not been able to see a good cardiologist for the last few months and I have a serious heart problem," Nasreen, 45, told Reuters by phone. "I also cannot see properly and need medical attention immediately." Nasreen fled Bangladesh in 1994 when a court said she had "deliberately and maliciously" hurt Muslim religious feelings with her Bengali-language novel "Lajja", or Shame, in which she argued the Hindu minority in Bangladesh was poorly treated. Last month, she was rushed to a hospital in New Delhi after her blood pressure plummeted from an overdose of medicines to control high blood pressure. "I always had hypertension and now it is getting worse locked up in this place," she said. Despite the protests by Muslim groups, Indian authorities have extended her visa regularly, but not allowed her to leave the house, guarded round-the-clock by police. |
| Posted by:Fred |