Novelist Salman Rushdie on ventilator after New York stabbing

The New York Police says Salman Rushdie, the controversial Indian-born novelist, is on a ventilator and unable to speak after he was stabbed in the neck and abdomen onstage at a lecture in New York state. This was also confirmed by the writer’s agent.

The 75 year-old novelist was being introduced to give a talk to an audience of hundreds on artistic freedom at western New York’s Chautauqua Institution when a man rushed to the stage to attack him.

The suspect was arrested by a state trooper soon after, and is now in custody.

He has been identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey, who bought a pass for the event.

Police say they do not yet know a motive for the assault, but they believe the suspect was acting alone.

The novelist, who was born into a Muslim Kashmiri family in Bombay, now Mumbai, before moving to the United Kingdom, has long faced death threats for his fourth novel, “The Satanic Verses.”

Some Muslims said the book contained blasphemous passages. It was banned in many countries with large Muslim populations upon its publication in 1988.

In 1989, Iran’s then leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a ruling or edict, calling for Sir Salman’s death over the controversial book.

The death threats and bounty led the writer to go into hiding for nine years under a British government protection program, which included a round-the-clock armed guard.