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KOLKATA: Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen returned to Kolkata on Friday, nearly two decades after she was forced to leave the city following protests over her controversial memoir Dwikhondito.
“I am really liking it here,” Nasreen said after arriving at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport.
The visit marks her first public appearance in Kolkata since 2007, when protests over her memoir prompted her departure from the city, where she had been living after leaving Bangladesh.
The book had been banned by the then Left Front government in West Bengal in 2003 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.
Now 63, Nasreen lives in New Delhi on a long-term residence permit.
She is scheduled to attend a programme against religious fundamentalism at Rabindra Sadan on Saturday. Organisers said she will recite her poems and participate in a discussion after a civic reception in her honour.
Speaking earlier to PTI, Nasreen described the visit as a “personal homecoming.”
“I never left Kolkata willingly; the then West Bengal government forced me to leave the state. Yet I never stopped hoping that one day I would return,” she said.
Her visit has triggered political reactions in West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress MLA Akhruzzaman criticised the decision, alleging that Nasreen had repeatedly made remarks against Muslims and claiming that was the reason the current state government had welcomed her.
State minister Agnimitra Paul, however, welcomed the visit, saying Nasreen had been denied the opportunity to return under previous governments despite speaking “the truth” in her writings. She described the author’s return as “a matter of pride and joy.”