New York, Aug 12 : Author Salman Rushdie, who has an estimated multi-million-dollar reward on his head was wounded on Friday while he was preparing to deliver a speech at an event in New York State on the US as the country of creativity. State Police said Rushdie, who was believed to be wounded in his neck, was taken by helicopter to an emergency hospital from the remote spiritual and education center in Chautauqua approximately 550 kilometers away from New York City, but did not provide details about his medical condition.
The suspect who pushed him to the floor and slapped him was arrested by a trooper from the state police who was in the area the scene, police said.
The identity of the attacker wasn’t immediately available.
An eyewitness informed the Daily Beast that the attacker was “heavy set” and wore the headpiece of black”.
The witness, Ward Pautler, said that he believed that the person who attacked him was “punching Rushdie, but then I realized he was attacking him”.
It is ironic that Rushdie took part at the Chautauqua Institution in the “discussion of the United States as a refuge for authors and other artists in exile, and as a place to freedom of artistic expression” according to the site of the organization.
After the release in 1989 of his novel “Satanic Verses” that some Muslims considered to be blasphemous, then Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa that called for Rushdie’s demise.
Different Iranian organizations offer reward amounts of greater than $3 million to kill the writer, who was 75 years old, from India.
Rushdie was a fugitive with British security for several years .He relocated to the US in 2000.He was since in the public eye since then.
He was spared from an assassination plot in 1989, when an explosive went off in the London hotel in which he was believed to be staying.The building was destroyed and demolished two floors of the hotel.
The Mujahidin of Islam group claimed the responsibility for the attack.
Al Qaeda also put him on its list of target persons together with numerous media and literary figures that it claimed insulted Islam.
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