Famous Novelist Sir Salman Rushdie Attacked Onstage In New York

 In a shocking incident noted author Sir Salman Rushdie was attached onstage  Friday morning at Chautauqua Institution where he was to begin his lecture. The author was stabbed and punched in the neck by an unidentified youngman who was seen rushing to the stage and began punching and stabbing the novelist. The author fell to the ground and the attacker was restrained. The New York Police Department has nabbed the attacker and begun interrogations. The author was taken to hospital by a medical helicopter. 

Sir Salman Rushdie is one of the most celebrated novelists of contemporary world of literature who became known to the world after his fourth novel The Sataniv Verses drew criticism from muslim community. A fatwa was issued by the then supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini. A bounty worth more than $3M was also announced for killing the author. The death threat caused Rushdie to go into hiding and living under stricter state protection given by the United Kingdom. The fatwa kept haunting him for nearly three decades. Things had been rather calm after 2010 and the author shifted to the USA. He detailed this fatwa issue in his 2012 autobiography JOSEPH ANTON - he chose the title after two of his favorite writers: Joseph Conrad and Anton Chekhov.

Sir Salman Rushdie has always been an ardent champion of free speech and maintained that one can have fearless disrespect for religion if the religious beliefs is full of illogical propositions and inhuman commandments. His favourite topics are politics and religion. 

Rushdie's condition is not good as he is on Ventilator and has endured deep wounds in liver and nerves of arms . As per his book agent Salman Rushdie may lose one of his eyes. The attacker is a 24 year youngman who reportedly stabbed the author in the neck and in his torso. The wounds on him are basically the wounds upon the creative world. The said literary event was on the topic of Artistic Freedom wherein Rushdie apart from dwelling on length on the importance of the theme was to appeal to the USA to offer shelter to writers in exile.

The Chautauqua Community is rather calm area and has rarely experienced such violent thing. There was only a man from the local police and no security check-up which was certainly a big lapse.

Hope Salman Rushdie survives this horrific attack and continues to be a light in our times of darkness.