New York, Aug 13 : Author Salman Rushdie, who was wounded at an event for literary writers in New York state, is currently being treated on ventilator and is unable to speak according to his agent. In a statement issued late Friday night, the agent of Rushdie Andrew Wylie said: “The news is not encouraging.Salman will likely lose one eye; nerves in his arm were cut and his liver was damaged and stabbed,” dpa news agency reported.
The perpetrator stormed the stage of the event in the Chautauqua Institution which was attended by hundreds of people about 11 a.m.on Friday.He attacked the novelist, who was born in India, at around 75 years old according to the police spokesman.
A number of event personnel and spectators then rushed to the suspect to the ground.
A police officer was able to arrest the young male identified as Hadi Matar of Fairview, New Jersey, the spokesperson said.
Rushdie was seen by the doctor who was in the audience until rescue personnel arrived and transported the author to the hospital via helicopter.
He was shot at the least one time in the neck area and in the stomach, police stated.
The attacker is believed to have been acting alone according to the spokesman.
Rushdie was delivering a lecture at a cultural center as part of an event titled “More than Shelter” which was designed to examine the US as an oasis of refuge for writers who have been exiled and artists who are being persecuted.
In the wake of his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” A fatwa was issued to Rushdie by the revolutionary leader of Iran at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, calling for the author’s execution.
Some Muslims were of the opinion that their religious sensibilities were offended by this work.
The attack on Friday was in any way connected to the long-standing fatwa was not clear.
The publisher of Rushdie’s book last year said the fatwa has since been removed from the author’s life and he is no any more restricted in the places he travels and no longer requires bodyguards.
The author had told German publication Stern days before that he felt secure in the US and the threat came in the past.
Writers, including JK Rowling as well as Stephen King expressed their horror at the attack.US writers’ group PEN America said it was “reeling from shock and horror over the news of an unforgiving, deliberate attack” on Rushdie.
“Salman Rushdie has been the target for his views for a long time but he has not blinked nor fell,” PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel said in a statement.
Rushdie was born in Mumbai in 1947 in that year of Indian independence.
He later went on to study the history of his time at Cambridge University in Britain.
He made his mark as an author with the novel “Midnight’s Children” that was awarded the famous Booker Prize in 1981.
In the book, he tells the story of India’s disengagement from the British Empire Based on the personal stories of characters who were born at the time of independence and are infused with supernatural powers.
Rushdie has published more than two dozen works of fiction as well as non-fiction writings in all.
His style is described as Magic Realism, in which real-life events are interspersed with incredible elements.
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