Stay in seclusion if you want visa, Taslima told

Taslima, whose visa expires on February 17, has been put up at an undisclosed location in Delhi following the violence in Kolkata last November. After a long stint in Europe, the author had stayed in Kolkata for the last three years.

Taslima has accepted the Centre’s offer, she told The Indian Express on phone. She said: “I don’t have any option, do I? They want me to stay the way I am at the moment. If I don’t accept the Indian government’s offer, I will have to leave the country. I don’t want that.” She has made one request to the ministry — to be allowed to meet close friends and family.

The author said she had filed for the extension of her visa to the Union Home ministry. She said, “Last week, Home officials got in touch with me. I told them I was okay with their offer. I am yet to hear from them.”

The Bengal government, however, is not being consulted on Taslima’s visa. The department’s Joint Secretary A K Saha said, “We don’t deal with visas of people from Bangladesh. The Centre has the final say.”

The author, who was to start work on the fifth volume of her biography, said she was more or less resigned to her fate now. “I don’t see any immediate respite from this condition. I have all comforts in this house, including a television set and newspapers. But I am not allowed to go out or receive guests,” she said. The author has also begun to work on her biography. “A little bit,” she added.

Taslima is, of course, eager to come back to Kolkata. “I continue to pay rent on my Rawdon Street flat. All my personal belongings are still there. I hope to go back to my second home some day,” she said.