Image caption Salman Rushdie will address the festival by video link 
 
 Author Salman Rushdie has withdrawn from India's biggest literary festival, saying that he feared assassination after influential Muslim clerics protested against his participation. 
 
 The author had been due to speak at the Jaipur literature festival. 
 
 He said he had been told by sources that assassins "may be on the way to Jaipur to kill me". 
 
 Salman Rushdie sparked anger in the Muslim world with his book The Satanic Verses, which many see as blasphemous. 
 
 He lived in hiding for many years after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his execution. 
 
 The author had been scheduled to speak on the opening day of the five-day Jaipur event which began on Friday, but earlier this week organisers said his schedule had changed and took his name off the list of speakers. 
 
 "I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to 'eliminate' me," Salman Rushdie said in a statement read out at the festival. 
 
 The failure of the state to secure Salman Rushdie's protection, many believe, is a shameful indictment of India's politicians and their opportunistic politics of least resistance A stain on India? 
 
 "While I have some doubts about the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances; irresponsible to my family, to the festival audience and to my fellow writers," he added. 
 
 "I will therefore not travel to Jaipur as planned." 
 
 'Stain on India' 
 
 The writer later tweeted that he was "very sad not to be at Jaipur" and that he would speak at the festival over a video link. 
 
 "I was told Bombay [Mumbai] mafia don issued weapons to two hitmen to 'eliminate' me. Will do video link instead. Damn." 
 
 Author William Dalrymple, who is also a festival organiser, said Salman Rushdie's decision to stay away was a "great tragedy". 
 
 Image caption There have been recent anti-Rushdie protests among Indian Muslim groups 
 
 "This is a result of a tragic game of Chinese whispers. We hope he will return to the festival," he added. 
 
 Author Hari Kunzru tweeted that Rushdie's absence from the festival is "a stain on India's international reputation". 
 
 Salman 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. 
 
 Correspondents say the protests against this year's planned trip are linked to crucial state elections due in Uttar Pradesh. 
 
 Correspondents say no political party wants to antagonise the Muslim community, which constitutes 18% of voters in the state, India's largest. 
 
 On 10 January, a leading Islamic seminary in India, Darul Uloom Deoband, called on the government to block Salman Rushdie's visit as he "had annoyed the religious sentiments of Muslims in the past". Darul Uloom is based in Uttar Pradesh. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Jaipur festival got under way on Friday amid tight security. More than 250 authors and a number of celebrities are participating. 
 
 Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the festival, which is being attended by authors Michael Ondaatje and Ben Okri, playwright Tom Stoppard, journalists David Remnick and Philip Gourevitch and TV host Oprah Winfrey, among others. ||||| OSLO — William Nygaard, publisher of the Norwegian edition of Salman Rushdie’s novel “The Satanic Verses,” was shot three times and left for dead outside his home in a quiet suburb of Oslo on the morning of Oct. 11, 1993. 
 
 Twenty-five years later, just two days before a deadline that would have foreclosed prosecution, the Norwegian police have at last filed charges in the shooting of Mr. Nygaard, who recovered from his wounds. And the authorities stated what many people had always taken for granted: that the attack had to do with Mr. Rushdie’s book, which infuriated Muslims around the world — a theory that the police played down a generation ago. 
 
 “We have no reason to believe there is any other motive for the attempted killing than the publication of ‘The Satanic Verses,’ ” said Ida Dahl Nilssen, a spokeswoman for Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service. The shooting was about more than an attack on one man, she said, it was a violent attempt to shut down free speech. 
 
 But the charges, announced on Tuesday, remain steeped in uncertainty, leaving it unclear how close the authorities really are to holding anyone responsible for one of Norway’s most notorious unsolved crimes. Officials have refused to say publicly what evidence they have or how many people have been charged, or to disclose the suspects’ names, nationalities or current locations.
– Writer Salman Rushdie was furious at "moronic" Facebook yesterday after the network took down his profile because operators thought it was fake. To start it up again, he was ordered to send in a copy of his passport—then told to use the name Ahmed because that's what appears on his passport. "They insist I call myself by the first name I have never used," he complained. "What a bunch of morons." Real first names are required by Facebook policy, even if you've used your middle name your entire life. “Dear #Facebook,” he tweeted, “forcing me to change my FB name from Salman to Ahmed Rushdie is like forcing J. Edgar to become John Hoover.” After much writerly moaning and groaning by the author of Satanic Verses, the profile page was reinstated with the name Salman Rushdie. Facebook said the takedown was all a misunderstanding and apologized. "Victory. Salman returns," crowed Ahmed.