Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen on Monday said she had not decided on her own to leave Kolkata, but chose to remain silent about her controversial departure.
"Why should I take a decision on my own? It did come to my mind that someone would come and kill me. Many like my writings, many others don't," she told a Bengali TV news channel.
She was asked whether she felt insecure after largescale violence following protests by a minority outfit demanding cancellation of her visa rocked large parts of central Kolkata on November 21 and took the decision on her own to leave the city.
She said, "There is freedom of expression here. Why have I to face (an ordeal) only because of protest by a handful of people? I want to return to Kolkata. I have not received any green signal as yet. I wonder from where the green signal will come", she told the channel in a telephonic interview from Delhi.
Asked whether she had to leave Kolkata under pressure, she replied, "I do not want to speak on this. I only want to return to Kolkata. The sooner that happens the better."
Taslima, who had fled Bangladesh in 1994 in a cloak of secrecy after radical Muslim outfits demanded her head, said "I want to stay in Kolkata. I do not want to go to Europe. If Bangladesh allows me to return, I won't but I will continue tospeak for my right to go (to Bangladesh)."
