London Bridge attack shock
ASIAN AUTHOR SAYS TERRORIST ATTENDED HER CREATIVE WRITING COURSE
THE Asian writer Preti Taneja has revealed she found out the morning after the London Bridge attacks that she knew the man responsible for the crime.
Usman Khan, 28, had taken a creative writing course led by Taneja in HMP Whitemoor, a high-security category A prison in Cambridgeshire, two years earlier, the Guardian said last weekend.
Taneja, the author of We That Are Young, a story based on King Lear but set in modern-day India, told the paper she taught Khan for 20 hours over one term, and wondered what could have been done to stop him.
“I think I had a perspective on what was going on, if anyone had asked ... I would have been able to say at the time – how can you release this person? How can you think they’re going to be fine? Going from category A, right into the world? Who is taking charge of this process? It was a technicality he was released on.”
In her new book, Aftermath, Taneja explores the events of the 2019 attacks. She said creative writing “was considered a sign of hope” for Khan, who had been convicted of terrorism offences.
He was encouraged to keep writing when he was banned from training as an HGV driver outside of prison.
Taneja said she felt “disenfranchised grief ... for those who had known the perpetrator, it was something unspeakable”.
She said the inquest “revealed how unsafe we as course leaders and students actually were while … we did this work inside; and in fact, it revealed we were all unsafe on the outside, too, all the way up to MI5 – which is what the coroner’s report finally concluded”.
Taneja said it was hard for her to talk about what happened for a long time.
Currently a professor of world literature and creative writing at the Universty of Newcastle, she was a former supervisor of practical criticism at Cambridge University. They apparently advised her to stay silent to protect herself and Taneja said she was also given media training by the university where they presented a list of questions journalists could ask her.
Many revolved around the possibility they might suggest her first book, which she had given to students in prison, could have possibly radicalised Khan.
“There was a serious suggestion that it could be interpreted that way by elements of the media,” Taneja said.
She added that proceeds from the new book Aftermath would be given to charity. “There’s no money being made here,” she was quoted as saying. “This book is a lament. It is a labour of love.”