Click to play videoNew Delhi: In the first ever statement of support from the CPM for controversial author Taslima Nasreen, veteran CPI-M leader and former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu has said that the writer is most welcome in West Bengal.
However, it has come with a rider that the Central government should take the author's full responsibility.
''If she wants to return to Kolkata or elsewhere in West Bengal, she is welcome. But the Centre will have to ensure her security,'' Basu told reporters .
Earlier, the Centre had given Taslima an ultimatum asking her to either stay in Delhi under government security or leave the country. The author, however, was keen on returning to Kolkta where she has spent 3 years. The author is currently in Delhi after being forced to leave Kolkata following violent protests against her writings.
This is the first CPI(M) leader to speak in sympathetic tone for the exiled writer ever since trouble broke out in Kolkata last month over her writings with a number of leaders having adopted a rather cold attitude on her return to the city.
Stating that he had read Nasreen's book Dwikhondito which sparked off violence in the city last month, the former West Bengal chief minister said, ''The state government has already banned the book. What she has written there about the Prophet Mohammad and the Koran cannot be accepted by any Muslim.'
Basu, however, was also critical of those who indulged in the violence last month after which she was whisked away to Jaipur, the Rajsthan House in Delhi and then to an undisclosed location in the national capital.
''Those who indulge in such violence think that they will be closer to God if they kill people,'' he said.
With inputs from PTI
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