Kolkata: Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen must apologise with “folded hands” for hurting the sentiments of Muslims in the country, said Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi on Sunday.
''We are a pluralistic nation and we respect all religions. I love literature and I have nothing against her writings. That does not mean she can use her pen to insult and hurt the religious beliefs of any community,” he said in Malda, West Bengal.
"The comments made by her in the book in question (Dwikhandito) were uncalled for. She should bow down before the people whose sentiments she has hurt and apologise with folded hands, and expunge those pages from her book," Dasmunsi said.
"We did not allow Salman Rushdie's book ('The Satanic Verses') when it caused a flutter and raised controversy. She will not be an exception," said Dasmunsi. ''Bangladesh is a neighbouring country and neither the society nor the government can allow such controversial writing.”
Nasreen has been confined to a 'safe house' somewhere in Delhi and shut out from the world except for phone calls and emails. The Central government has told her to leave the country or stay confined in a house away from Kolkata, where she had set up home for the past few years returning from exile in Europe after she was hounded out of Bangladesh for her writings.
Asked if Nasreen should be allowed to return to West Bengal, Dasmunsi said: ''When the state government had welcomed her to Kolkata, they were under the impression that they were about to bring a high tide of progress in the state. It is their headache now.''
But if Taslima has to stay in India or any other country, she has to honour and respect the philosophy and identity of that nation, he added.
At the beginning of 2008, the writer had described her condition as in a no man's land of fading hope, despair and crushing loneliness.
(With IANS and UNI)
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