New Delhi: Two weeks after the attack, India on Thursday, August 25 condemned the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie at a literary event in the US and wished him a “speedy recovery”.On August 12, Mumbai-born Rushdie was stabbed ten times by a 24-year-old man who came on the stage at the start of a talk at Chautauqua Institution in western New York. The attacker was arrested.Rushdie had to live for years under strict security after Iranian supremo, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for his death over his book, The Satanic Verses. India had been one of the countries which banned the book. The Satanic Verses’ Japanese translator was stabbed in 1991 and the Norwegian translator was shot two years later.Three days after the attack, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar only noted that the Booker prize winner had been attacked. “I also read about it. This is something that the whole world has noticed and the whole world has reacted to such an attack,” he said in response to a query about the incident.However, there had been no official statement till now.Also read: Salman Rushdie and the Story of IndiaReplying to a question from The Wire at the weekly media briefing, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi condemned the attack. “India has always stood against violence and extremism. We condemn the horrific attack on Salman Rushdie and we wish him a speedy recovery,” he said.There had been immediate condemnation from the US President, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.“Salman Rushdie – with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced – stands for essential, universal ideals,” Biden had said on August 13.Following the stabbing, Rushdie underwent hours of surgery, before being put on a ventilator. According to his literary agent, Rushdie could lose an eye and receive serious injuries on his hand and liver. Two days later, he was taken off the ventilator and had started to talk, though his recovery had a long road ahead.While denying any role in Rushdie’s stabbing, Iran government said that only “he and his supporters were worthy of reproach and condemnation for denigrating the world’s Muslims”.