British author Salman Rushdie, whose radical work had triggered Iran to issue death threats back in the 1980s, was stabbed on August 12, just as he was about to deliver a lecture in western New York, United States.
The New York State Police has said that Salman Rushdie's condition is not yet known and added that the interviewer also suffered a minor head injury. A State Trooper assigned to the event immediately took the suspect into custody, they added.
A reporter from news agency Associated Press witnessed a man storming the stage at the Chautauqua Institution before he attacked Rushdie while he was being introduced. Although the attacker was restrained, the author reportedly fell to the floor at the spot.
The Indian-origin author, 75, who won a Booker Prize for his novel ‘Midnight's Children’, received aid on-site and was able to eventually walk off stage with assistance.
Video footage showed people rushing to his aid after he was attacked at the event in Chautauqua County, with police confirming a stabbing while declining to immediately identify the victim.
Notably, Rushdie’s book – ‘The Satanic Verses’ -- has been banned in Iran since 1988, because many Muslims found it to be blasphemous. A year later, Iran's former leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa (edict) calling for Rushdie's death.
Rushdie, who has received several death threats since the ongoing fatwa was announced, was attacked on the heels of the arrest of a person, whom the Islamic nation had reportedly offered more than $3 million in reward to kill former United States’ official John Bolton.
(With agency inputs)
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