Salman Rushdie’s health is improving, ventilator removed, arrested accused pleads innocent
According to various reports, writer Salman Rushdie was taken off the ventilator last night. However, the author, who was attacked at a literary event in New York, is still hospitalized with serious injuries.
Important information related to the case:
The president of the Chautauqua Institution, where the writer was stabbed, said in a tweet that Salman Rushdie has been taken off the ventilator and is talking. According to the Washington Post, Rushdie’s agent Andrew Wyllie also confirmed this. Here, 24-year-old Hadi Matar, accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie, pleaded innocent and said that he did not commit the incident. However, it was called a “premeditated” crime by a prosecutor.
Prosecutors said during Hadi Matar’s appearance in a New York court that the writer had been stabbed in the neck and abdomen about 10 times. A preliminary review of the accused’s social media has depicted him as a “Shia extremist” and leaning towards Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC).
Witnesses said Rushdie was about to speak at the event when the suspect ran to the stage and attacked him with a knife. After this, the people present in the audience pulled him down from the stage. Interviewer Ralph Henry Reisy also suffered a face injury in this incident, but he was discharged after treatment. The police confirmed this.
Salman Rushdie was taken to the hospital where he underwent emergency surgery. According to his agent, he may have lost one eye. Along with this, the nerves of one of his hands have been cut and his liver has also got damaged.
The attack on Salman Rushdie drew worldwide condemnation. US President Joe Biden condemned the attack, saying the author stood for essential and universal ideals – truth, courage and resilience. President Biden said, “I am grateful to the first responders and the brave individuals who jumped to assist Rushdie and subdue the attacker.” British leader Boris Johnson said he was “shocked”, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the attack “reprehensible” and “cowardly”.
Rushdie, 75, came into limelight in 1981 with his second novel, “Midnight’s Children”, which won international acclaim and Britain’s prestigious Booker Prize.
His 1988 book “The Satanic Verses” was considered by some Muslims to be disrespectful to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Angered by the novel, Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa. He was ordered to be beheaded in the fatwa, which forced him to hide for many years.
Rushdie moved to New York in the early 2000s and became a US citizen in 2016. In a recent interview with Germany’s Stern magazine, Rushdie described how, after living with death threats for so many years, his life was back to normal.
