Salman Rushdie withdrew from the festival on Friday, claiming he had been told by police that assassins were planning to end his life.
The author sparked anger in the Muslim world with his 1988 book The Satanic Verses. Many followers of Islam see it as blasphemous.
When Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his execution, he lived in hiding for many years.
Even today, Rushdie is a figure of hatred for many in Islam – influential Muslim clerics last week protested against his participation in the run-up to the festival’s opening on Friday.
Rushdie tweeted yesterday that he had scrutinised the information and believed “that I was indeed lied to”. “I am outraged and very angry,” he said. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot labelled Rushdie’s allegation “baseless”.
“A confirmed information about a threat to Mr Rushdie’s life was shared by the Intelligence Bureau with the organisers of the festival.
“Such inputs had started to come even before the beginning of the event,” Gehlot’s government said in a statement.
However, the chief of the Maharashtra police denied his force had sent any intelligence to counterparts in Rajasthan.
“When we had no information that gangsters or paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld had planned to eliminate Salman Rushdie, how could we have shared it with anybody?” director-general of Maharashtra police K Subramaniam said.
Rushdie was born in India but is a British citizen and has lived in the UK for most of his life. In recent years he has made many private visits to India and attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2007.
