Amidst widespread outrage over author Salman Rushdie having to cancel his India visit in the face of stiff opposition from fundamentalist groups and a possible threat to his life, the Maharashtra police said it did not have any information about Rushdie’s life being in danger.
“When we had no information that gangsters or paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld had planned to eliminate Rushdie, how could we have shared it with anybody,” Maharashtra director-general of police K. Subramaniam told the media, adding that he was unaware of any interaction between the Rajasthan police and Rushdie regarding the issue. He said he had not received any such inputs from the Rajasthan police.
[In Jaipur, meanwhile, Indian writer Chetan Bhagat disapproved of authors of books banned for allegedly hurting religious sentiments being made “heroes”, as the writing fraternity appeared divided over a group of authors reading out passages from Rushdie’s banned book, PTI reports. “Let’s not make heroes out of those people who are banned,” Bhagat said. Bhagat, however, said violence and taking the law into one’s own hands are not acceptable.]
The police spokesperson, DCP Nisar Tamboli, who is also a senior officer with the Mumbai police crime branch, confirmed to this newspaper that no inputs had been received any threat to the writer, saying, “The Mumbai police has no information about any threat to Rushdie’s life from either the underworld or fundamentalists.”
The Darul Uloom Deoband, a major Islamic seminary, had objected to Rushdie’s visit to India earlier this month as his writing had “hurt the sentiments of Muslims”. Jaipur Literature Festival producer Sanjoy Roy had said on Friday that, according to his information, paid hitmen from the underworld were on their way from Mumbai to Jaipur in order to kill Rushdie.