Exiled Bangladeshi writer says will leave India (Reuters)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen said on Monday she was leaving India because of failing health after being forced to live in a secret hideaway without any visitors for nearly four months.

Violent protests by Muslim groups in November forced Indian authorities to spirit away the controversial writer from her home in the eastern city of Kolkata, where she lived for four years.

After moving her around for a while, authorities placed her in an undisclosed "safe house" in New Delhi, where she has remained isolated with a mobile phone, a laptop computer and a television set, but no visitors are allowed.

"I have not been able to see a good cardiologist for the last few months, and I have a serious heart problem," Nasreen, 45, told Reuters by phone. "I also cannot see properly and need medical attention immediately."

Nasreen fled Bangladesh in 1994 when a court said she had "deliberately and maliciously" hurt Muslim religious feelings with her Bengali-language novel "Lajja," or "Shame," in which she argued the Hindu minority in Bangladesh was poorly treated.

Last month, she was rushed to a hospital in New Delhi after her blood pressure plummeted from an overdose of medicines to control high blood pressure.

"I always had hypertension and now it is getting worse locked up in this place," she said.

Despite the protests by Muslim groups, Indian authorities have extended her visa regularly, but not allowed her to leave the house, guarded round-the-clock by police.

Nasreen has repeatedly appealed for freedom.

"I cannot live like this. I have to get out of here and save my life now," she said, barely able to speak. "I will either go to France or Germany."

Nasreen, was conferred the Prix Simone de Beauvoir by the French government for her feminist writings, but was not allowed by the Indian government to receive it from visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy in January.

"Once I feel better, I want to come back to India and return to Kolkata and live there," she added. Authorities in West Bengal state, of which Kolkata is the capital, do not want her back to avoid trouble.

Leading Indian intellectuals, including Booker prize-winner Arundhati Roy, have criticized Indias officially secular government for not doing more for Nasreen and in particular the communist leaders of West Bengal for not allowing her back.

The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought in 1994. She lived in Europe before settling down in Kolkata.

Reuters/Nielsen