The passport of Taslima Nasreen was revoked by Bangladesh in 1994 for her writings that the Islamic State viewed as blasphemous (Though she had written for a decade about women’s rights in an Islamic State, what sealed her fate was when she exposed the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh in her novel Lajja [Shame]). For 10 years thereafter, she lived in exile in different countries in the West. In 2004, she thought that Kolkata, capital of the state that speaks her language Bengali, would embrace her. But her stay in this country was cut short in 2008 when the then CPI(M)-led Left Front government virtually declared her persona non grata. The state government succumbed to the appeal issued two years before this by Syed Noorur Rehaman Barkati, the imam of Kolkata’s Tipu Sultan Mosque, who had offered money to any Muslim who would blacken her face. In March 2007, All India Muslim Personal Board (Jadeed)’s Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan had offered Rs 5,00,000 for her beheading.