By IANS
New Delhi : In a stealthy post-midnight operation, away from the media glare, Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was shifted from Rajasthan House in New Delhi and taken to an undisclosed safe house.
Escorted by Intelligence Bureau officials with a decoy car in tow, Nasreen and her brother Faizal were quickly transported out of Rajasthan House where she has been camping for the last three days.
“We cannot tell you where she has been shifted. It defeats the entire purpose of our operation. Everything will be clear soon,” an intelligence official said.
According to the officials, a team landed at the Rajasthan House around 12.45 a.m. and within minutes moved the controversial author, who was aware of the plans and had already packed her bags.
Nasreen has been on the run since Thursday last week after she was virtually hounded out of Kolkata following a violent agitation against her in that city last Wednesday.
She was forced to initially shift to Jaipur. Then she was hurriedly shifted from Jaipur to New Delhi after the All India Milli Council threatened to hold protests if the writer was kept in Rajasthan for long.
West Bengal’s ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has washed its hands off the matter saying the Bangladeshi writer moved to Jaipur on her own and the centre should decide where she would stay.
In interviews to several television channels, Nasreen has expressed her eagerness to return to Kolkata though the Indian government is yet to give her security clearance to go back to the city she calls her home.
Indirectly, Taslima has tried telling both the central and West Bengal governments that appeasing the fundamentalists would serve no purpose.
“If we allow fundamentalists to go unopposed, no society will be safe,” she told news channel CNN-IBN.
Nasreen has been facing death threats from Islamic radical groups in Bangladesh, which forced her to shift to Kolkata some years back.