Chautauqua: Salman Rushdie, the author of the controversial `The Satanic Verses’ was stabbed when was about to deliver a lecture in western New York.
The attacker was immediately overpowered by the security forces. However, Rushdie’s condition still remains unknown.
Reports said a man stormed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution and punched and stabbed Rushdie as he was being introduced. The author was taken or fell to the floor, and the man was restrained.
Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses has been banned in Iran since 1988, as many Muslims consider it to be blasphemous. A year later, Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, calling for Rushdie’s death.
A bounty of over USD 3 million has also been offered for anyone who kills Rushdie.
Iran’s government has long since distanced itself from Khomeini’s decree, but anti-Rushdie sentiment lingered. In 2012, a semi-official Iranian religious foundation raised the bounty for Rushdie from USD 2.8 million to USD 3.3 million.
Rushdie dismissed that threat at the time, saying there was no evidence of people being interested in the reward.
That year, Rushdie published a memoir, Joseph Anton, about the fatwa.
