Virtually hounded out of Kolkata, controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen was on Friday packed off by the Rajasthan police from a hotel in Jaipur after an overnight stay to an undisclosed destination, but her exact whereabouts remained a mystery at the end of the day.
Nasreen stayed in a hotel in Jaipur on Thursday and was hurriedly shifted from the Pink City by a posse of Rajasthan police and intelligence personnel on Friday morning amidst widespread reports that she was being taken to Delhi.
However, late in the evening Rajasthan government said in a press release that it was "left with no alternative except to have Nasreen as a guest of Government of Rajasthan till such time the (Union) Ministry of Home Affairs takes a final view regarding her stay and security".
Rajasthan's principal home secretary V S Singh said "she is our state guest. It is our responsibility to provide security. The location cannot be divulged due to security reasons".
Unconfirmed reports said that the Bengali novelist, who is in self-exile in India following death threats in Bangladesh after her allegedly anti-Islamic writings, was in Haryana's Gurgaon area, neighbouring Delhi.
Seeking the intervention of the home ministry, the Rajasthan government said it toyed with the idea of sending the writer back to Kolkata, but the West Bengal government "simply refused to countenance this idea".
Nasreen was put on a flight to Jaipur yesterday by the West Bengal Police following large scale violence in Kolkata by a Muslim organisation demanding cancellation of her visa and expulsion to Bangladesh.
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