Controversial Writer of the provocative novel The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, was reportedly stabbed a dozen times in the neck on stage while giving a public lecture at an event organized by the Chautauqua Institution in New York on Friday local time.
Rushdie is said to have just been summoned and introduced by the hosts onto the stage when an assailant appeared and beat him multiple times in the neck and chest, then stabbed him about 15 times in the same area.
Seeing the stage of the literary event, which was soon filled with blood, the event participants panicked and started running and scattered out of the scene. The attacker was apprehended and secured by security officers at the scene before fleeing.
Rushdie’s literary agent, who takes care publication of his works, Andrew Wylie, said that the novelist’s condition is not yet stable, and he is currently being helped with a ventilator to breathe.
Dr. Martin Haskell revealed that Salman Rushdie had serious wounds that were difficult to heal. Rushdie’s internal organs were reported to be severely damaged, his heart was also damaged, several nerves in his arm were severed, and he may have lost sight in one eye.
Rushdie wasn’t the only one attacked on the show; 73-year-old Henry Reese, a co-founder who offered the novelist residency, was also persecuted and received death threats. Reese suffered a facial injury and is currently being treated at the hospital.
Rushdie and Reese are planned in the literary discussion event to discuss the United States of America, which can be a refuge for writers and artists in exile.
Salman Rushdie is widely known for his work entitled ‘Satanic Verses’, which was published in 1988 and aroused a lot of protests and anger among Muslims worldwide. The novel tells of the main character named “Mahmoud,” who is allegedly a thin and distorted representation of the Prophet Muhammad.
The name Mahmoud has been used in medieval Christian dramas to represent a demonic character, leading Muslims to conclude that Rushdie implied Prophet Muhammad as a false prophet.
Rushdie’s novels were banned in India and sparked riots in Pakistan in 1989. In mid-February 1989, the former Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued death threats against Rushdie and his publisher.
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