New York: Indian-born novelist Salman Rushdie, stabbed in the abdomen and in the neck at a function in New York state on Friday, was put on ventilator on Saturday, said his agent Andrew Wylie. The 75-year-old author is unable to speak and may lose one of his eyes, he said. The author has received death threats since the publication of his book, The Satanic Verses, in 1988. In the aftermath of the attack on the author, the police detained a 24-year-old suspect Hadi Matar.
According to the New York police, the suspect walked up to the stage and attacked Rushdie and an interviewer at the Chautauqua Institution, Western New York. Immediately after the attack, a doctor who was among the audience provided first aid to the author and then he was taken to a hospital by a helicopter.
Read also: 88-year-old Tara wins heart of many in Kerala
Nevertheless, the motive for the crime has not been established. The interviewer Henry Reese suffered a minor injury in the head. Rushdie shot to fame after writing Midnight’s Children in 1981, which was one of the best-selling books across the world. He won the Booker Prize for the novel. The Satanic Verses, which he wrote in 1988, forced him into hiding for nearly ten years. The novel kicked up resentment among some Muslims because they thought it consists of slurs against Islam and many countries, including India, proscribed the novel. After the release of the book, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa announcing a reward of $3 million for killing Rushdie. The Iranian government has yet to react to the stabbing incident.
