Advani takes up cudgels for Taslima

NEW DELHI: Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has found a friend in the BJP. Leader of the opposition LK Advani said she was a victim of “religious persecution” in her native country and demanded that the centre extend her visa, which is expiring on February 15.

“I am shocked and outraged at media reports that the noted Bengali writer, Taslima Nasreen, has been kept in virtual house arrest at a secret place in Delhi and, worse still, that her health is affected by poor medical care.

Both the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in West Bengal are responsible for her plight. They are guilty of practising the most perverse kind of politics of vote bank and appeasement of religious extremism,” Advani said.

Advani said he had heard from reliable sources she was being pressurised by the UPA government to leave India. The BJP leader marshaled out figures to suggest that it was ironic that the Congress-Communist combine, which has actively colluded in the influx of 12,05,3,950 illegal Bangladeshi migrants (as on 31 December 2001) in Assam, Bengal and other parts of the country, “cannot give protection to a single hapless woman who is a victim of religious persecution in her own country.

Many of these infiltrators have been given not only shelter but also ration cards and voting rights”. “I demand that Nasreen be allowed to lead a normal life in West Bengal. It is the responsibility of the Centre and state governments to ensure her personal security,” he said.

s_singh@dnaindia.net