New Delhi: The Indian government has confirmed that Taslima Nasreen, the exiled Bengali author who fled Bangladesh after facing death threats over her writings, is free to travel anywhere within the country.

The Ministry of External Affairs conveyed this in response to BJP Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya’s request urging the Centre to ensure her safe return to Kolkata.

Currently residing in Delhi, Nasreen has been granted a visa of “appropriate category and duration,” the MEA said.

Exile and violent backlash to her writings

Taslima Nasreen gained international recognition in the early 1990s through her feminist perspectives and her criticism of what she termed "misogynistic religions."

The controversy surrounding her novel Lajja led to several fatwas and ultimately forced her to leave Bangladesh in 1994.

She spent the next ten years in Europe and the US before moving to India in 2004.

Nasreen stayed in Kolkata for three years until violent protests broke out in 2007 over passages from her memoir Dwikhandita.

Following the backlash, she moved out of the city, first to Jaipur, and later to Delhi, where she was briefly under house arrest.

Following attacks by Muslim groups in Kolkata and Hyderabad, accusing her of blasphemy, Nasreen has remained based in Delhi.

Successive Indian governments have since granted her a long-term resident permit and a multiple-entry visa.

‘I don’t want to get kicked around anymore’

While BJP MP Bhattacharya has called for her return to Kolkata, Nasreen has said she does not consider moving back from Delhi a practical option at this stage of her life.

“I have been kicked around like a football by the political dispensations who felt ill at ease with my presence within their boundaries because of my literary and world views. At this stage of my life, I don't want to get kicked around anymore,” she told PTI.

However, she expressed a desire to be allowed to occasionally visit the city to attend literary festivals and book fairs, events she remains emotionally attached to.

“It would please me if the governments allow me to travel to Kolkata to attend literature festivals and book fairs from where I continue to receive regular invitations,” she said.