Author Salman Rushdie was stabbed on stage while he was being introduced at the event of the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York on Friday.
Currently, the 75-year-old author is on a ventilator with a damaged liver and may lose one of his eyes as he was stabbed in the neck and abdomen.
What happened?
Rushdie was stabbed in the neck and abdomen on Friday when he was on the stage at the Chautauqua Institution, a not-for-profit community on Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State.
Rushdie was provided medical treatment by a doctor who was in the audience until emergency medical personnel arrived on the scene, officials said. The doctor immediately began first aid on Rushdie.
Several members of the staff at the institution and audience members rushed the suspect and took him to the ground, State Police Troop Commander Major Eugene J Staniszewski said.
A trooper with the New York State Police, who was at the institution, took the suspect into custody with the assistance of a Chautauqua County Sheriff's deputy.
Who attacked Salman Rushdie?
Rushdie, who faced Islamist death threats for years after writing ‘The Satanic Verses’, was stabbed by a 24-year-old New Jersey resident identified as Hadi Matar, Staniszewski said in a Friday evening news conference. He is in police custody as of now.
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Salamn Rushdie is on ventilator
A bloodied Rushdie was airlifted from a field adjacent to the venue to a hospital in northwestern Pennsylvania where the 75-year-old writer underwent surgery.
Following hours of surgery, Rushdie was on a ventilator and unable to speak as of Friday evening.
Rushdie "will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” the writer's agent Andrew Wylie told The New York Times.
“The news is not good,” Wylie said. Police are working with the FBI and local authorities to determine the motive.
Authorities are also working to obtain search warrants for several items found at the scene, including a backpack and electronic devices, Staniszewski said.
What’s the motive behind the attack?
Staniszewski said the authorities do not have any indication of a motive "at this time. But we are working with the FBI, the Sheriff's Office and we will determine what the cause of this was and what the motive for this attack was".
Who is Salman Rushdie?
Rushdie, who won the Booker Prize for his novel Midnight's Children, was born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in Bombay and moved to the UK.
He has long faced death threats for his novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ most prominently from Iran’s powerful cleric and leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who had pronounced a fatwa calling upon Muslims to kill the novelist.
READ | Salman Rushdie stabbed: What’s controversial about Satanic Verses?
