Rushdie blames Raj police to keep him away

Salman Rushdie slammed Rajasthan police for "inventing" a threat to his life to keep him away from the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Jaipur: The Salman Rushdie row refused to
blow over on Sunday with the controversial author slamming
Rajasthan police for "inventing" a threat to his life to keep
him away from the Jaipur Literature Festival.

The state government dismissed the charge saying
Intelligence Bureau had given the inputs and it was not
concocted.

A day after Mumbai police refuted reports that it had
passed on information about "paid assassins" being on their
way to eliminate Rushdie, 64-year-old Rushdie took to
microblogging site Twitter to vent his anger.

"Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie`
I`ve investigated, & believe that I was indeed lied to. I am
outraged and very angry," he tweeted.

Rushdie said he does not know if the false intelligence
information was given by Rajasthan police under instructions
from someone.

"Don`t know who gave orders. And yes I guess the same
police who want to arrest (authors) Hari, Amitava, Jeet and
Ruchir. Disgusting," he said responding to a comment on
whether it is the same police who now want to arrest writers
for reading passages of his banned work `The Satanic Verses`
at the festival.

Rejecting Rushdie`s charge, a senior Rajasthan government
official said, "It was the input of IB on the basis of which
the organisers advised Rushdie not to attend the Jaipur
Literary festival.

Rejecting Rushdie`s charge, a senior Rajasthan government
official said, "It was the input of IB on the basis of which
the organisers advised Rushdie not to attend the Jaipur
Literary festival.

"It was brought to our knowledge today that Rushdie
through twitter had said that the Rajasthan police tried to
keep him away from the festival. It is absolutely wrong," the
official said.

"It is our duty that if we receive advisory on any threat
perception against anyone, we provide full security to him,"
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said.

PTI

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