British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie has been taken off the ventilator and is approachable. His literary agent Andrew Wylie confirms this to news agency APa day after the writer was stabbed on a stage in the United States.
the devil verses-author was stabbed Friday during a lecture in Chautauqua, New York. According to CNN It involved three stab wounds to the neck, four stab wounds to his abdomen, one to his chest, one to his eye and a cut to his leg.
The 75-year-old Rushdie is likely to lose his right eye, Wylie previously reported. The nerves in his arm were also seriously damaged.
His literary agent has not disclosed what will happen to Rushdie.
A 24-year-old man was arrested immediately after the stabbing. He is charged with assault and attempted murder. The Chautauqua Public Prosecution Service reported this on Saturday. The suspect claims to be innocent.
The police and the Public Prosecution Service are still investigating the motive of the perpetrator. The attack is suspected to have something to do with a fatwa (religious-legal advice in Islam) issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in the late 1980s. In the fatwa, Khomeini called for Rushdie’s murder. The reason for this was his book The Devil’s Verses. It led to numerous death threats and several assassination attempts on the writer. The Japanese translator of the book was also murdered.