The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, 75, was attacked on stage in New York, on Friday and is reportedly on a ventilator now but might lose an eye, according to international media citing his manager.
According to witnesses, a man rushed the stage as the Indian-born British writer was being presented to the crowd before giving a lecture and stabbed or hit him 10 to 15 times.
According to reports in international media, Salman, who spent years in hiding and faced threats to his life when his book The Satanic Verses was published in 1988, was supposed to speak about freedom of expression and how the United States offers a haven for writers.
The suspect in arrest is a 24-year-old man from New Jersey called Hadi Matar, according to the police. There is no proven motivation.
Previously, Mustafa Mahmoud, an Iranian, attempted to assassinate Salman Rushdie in 1368 (1988); who himself was killed in London that same year.
The author Salman Rushdie, who was born in India and received death threats from Iran in the 1980s, was attacked on Friday morning in New York by a man who stormed the podium where he was to speak, according to the New York law enforcement officers.
When the Satanic Verses book was first published, there was a huge uproar because Muslims claimed it was blasphemous and mocked their religion.
Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then the Supreme Leader of Iran, demanded Rushdie’s execution on February 14, 1989, in response to the indignation among Muslims.
