People are trying to help author Salman Rushdie after he was stabbed near New York on Friday.
Author Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed Friday at an event in upstate New York, was hit “10 to 15” in the attack, eyewitnesses said. One of them said she thought it was “a stunt” at first.
“This man ran onto the platform and started pounding Mr. Rushdie,” said Rabbi Charles Savenor, who sat in the audience for the talk at the Chautauqua Institute, about 100 km from the city.
“At first you think, ‘What’s going on?’ And then within seconds it became abundantly clear that he was being beaten,” Savenor told the news agency, saying the attack lasted about 20 seconds.
An AP reporter said the attacker “punched or stabbed Mr Rushdie 10 to 15 times”.
A woman from the audience, Kathleen Jones, said the attacker was dressed in black, with a black mask. “We thought maybe it was a stunt to show that there is still a lot of controversy surrounding this author. But it became clear within seconds that it wasn’t, she told AP.
Mr Rushdie immediately fell to the ground and the attacker was stopped. A small group of people surrounded the author, holding his legs up, presumably to send more blood to his chest, AP reported.
The approximately 2,500 people in the audience gasped at the sight of the attack – some rushing to the sage to help – and were later evacuated.
New York State Police confirmed the stabbing and said Rushdie was taken by helicopter to a hospital in the area. The attacker is in custody, police said, who would not provide further details.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul tweeted that “our thoughts are with Salman (Rushdie) and his loved ones,” pledging all assistance with the investigation.
Thanks for the quick response from @nyspolice and first responders after today’s attack on author Salman Rushdie.
Our thoughts are with Salman and his loved ones after this horrific event. I have instructed the state police to assist with the investigation, however necessary.
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) August 12, 2022
People on social media showed how people came to his aid on stage. One person interviewed by Mr Rushdie suffered minor head injuries in the attack.
The attack took place around 11am local time (8:30pm IST) when Mr Rushdie was introduced before speaking. Located in a rural part of New York, the Chautauqua Institution is known for its summer lecture series. Mr Rushdie has spoken there before.
While no connection has yet been made to previous death threats, Rushdie faced threats in particular in the late 1980s because of his book, The Devil’s Verses, which is alleged to be blasphemous against Islam. There was also a reward on his head by the top Iranian leader, although by 1998 the Iranian government said it was not trying to enforce that “fatwa” or that edict.
In 2012, after an Iranian religious group renewed the bounty on him, he dismissed that threat, saying there was “no evidence” that people were interested in the reward, the AP report said. That year he published a memoir, Joseph Anton, on the fatwa. The title came from the pseudonym he had used while in hiding.
Mr Rushdie, a British citizen of Indian descent, has lived in the US for the past 20 years. After the controversy over his fourth book, The Devil’s Verses (1988), he remained out of the public eye, living mainly in the United Kingdom. Despite the threats, he produced several novels in the 1990s.
His first novel came out in 1975, but one of his seminal works is about modern India, Midnight kids (1981), for which he won the Booker Prize. In 2007, he was knighted – given the ceremonial title ‘Sir’ – by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. He has produced more than a dozen works, including non-fiction.
