Salman Rushdie stabbed: Jaishankar reacts to attack; 'Something whole world has noticed'

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that he has read about the attack on novelist Salman Rushdie, who was punched and stabbed in New York, and stated that the whole world has noticed it.

 

The Mumbai-born author is on a ventilator with a damaged liver and may lose one of his eyes after he was stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen by a person on stage at a literary event in western New York.

 

The author, who faced fatwas for years after writing "The Satanic Verses", was stabbed by a 24-year-old New Jersey resident Hadi Matar, who barged onto the stage on Friday while Rushdie was being introduced at the event of the Chautauqua Institution.

 

 

 

Addressing a press conference in Karnataka, EAM Jaishankar said, "I also read about it. This is something that the whole world has noticed and the whole world has reacted to such an attack."

 

Rushdie was flown to a hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania where the Booker Prize winner underwent surgery.

 

The author spent nearly 10 years in hiding under a police protection program in the United Kingdom after Iran's late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gave a fatwa calling for Rushdie's execution in 1988. He had also announced a bounty of USD 3 million for anyone who kills Rushdie. Since 2000, Rushdie has been living in the United States.

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