I don’t need a visa to visit India, claims Rushdie

Chandigarh, January 10
In the poll season, even a Booker of Bookers award winning author can be used as fodder for political gains. Or, at least an attempt can be made to do so.

It is a different matter that most of those demanding cancellation of Salman Rushdie’s visa for his India visit to participate in the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) may have never read ‘ The Satanic Verses’, the book that has been the cause of over two-decade long controversy, re-ignited this time for a myopic political game.

In 1989, when Ayatollah Khomeini, an Iranian leader, had issued a fatwa ( death sentence) on Rushdie over his controversial book ‘The Satanic Verses’, it was told, even he had not read the book. The fatwa was withdrawn by the government of Iran in 1998, which should have made the issue a forgotten history.

But, in the obscure political landscape of UP, where 17 per cent Muslims form a big vote bank, Deoband chief, Maulana Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani’s demand that Rushdie should be denied visa, received an apt response from the author, who never disappoints his detractors. The writer tweeted, “my Indian visit, for the record, I don’t need a visa.”

The Deoband chief said he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to cancel Rushdie’s visa, adding a threat, “In case of no response from the UPA government, the Darul-Uloom Deoband will take appropriate action.” Whatever the appropriate action may be, the producer of JLF, Sanjoy Roy, remained unfazed. He said, “Salman Rushdie has attended several literary events and forums in India in recent years. The JLF provides a space for free speech in India's best democratic traditions, we are a plural society, and it is imperative that we continue to allow avenues for unfettered literary expression.”

Sanjoy has reasons to be confident. He has witnessed the popularity Rushdie enjoys across lines. If only the protesters knew, the same Rushdie had kept his audience glued over couple of hours in the open lawns of Diggi Palace in 2007, where the JLF is organised every year.

Though the protests are also a sad reminder of the fate of Harud, the first ever literature festival planned for Kashmir Valley in September 2011, which had to be cancelled because rumours were spread that Rushdie was going to be a guest.

Rushdie is scheduled to address a literary session, “Midnight`s Children” named after his landmark Man Booker Prize winning 1981 novel, anchored by noted writer Hari Kunzru on Jan 21, he will also participate in a group discussion, “Inglish, Amlish, Hinglish: The Chutneyfication of English”, featuring Rita Kothari, Tarun Tejpal and Ira Pande on Jan 23 at Diggi Palace, Jaipur. 

The recent row

* Deoband chief Maulana Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani on Monday demanded that controversial author Salman Rushdie should be denied visa to visit India for the Jaipur litfest

* The Deoband chief said he had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to cancel Rushdie's visa. He had warned that in case of no response from the UPA government, the Darul-Uloom Deoband will take appropriate action

Govt unlikely to stop Salman

NEW DELHI: Controversial author Salman Rushdie is unlikely to be stopped by the government from travelling to India as he holds a Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card that entitles him to visit the country without visa. "He had travelled to India in the past using PIO card. We have never stopped him. We have no intention to stop any PIO card holder to travel to his or her home country in future either," a source said. 

Medicine Hat triple murderer Jeremy Steinke filing appeal of 2008 conviction

Says guilty verdict is “unreasonable”

Three years after being convicted of slaughtering his underage girlfriend’s parents and eight-year-old brother, a Medicine Hat man says his guilty verdict is “unreasonable.”

Jeremy Allan Steinke is hoping for a new murder trial after filing an appeal of his 2008 conviction.

“It was an unreasonable verdict, I didn’t appeal sooner because I’m new to the system and did not know what I was doing, and at the time I could not find a lawyer who would take my case,” wrote Steinke, who was defended at his trial by high-profile criminal defence lawyer Alain Hepner through legal aid.

“Once my appeal is approved, I will contact legal aid so that they may cover the cost of the lawyer as I cannot afford one.”

Steinke, soon to be 29, is serving a life sentence in Edmonton Institution with no chance of parole for 25 years on three counts of first-degree murder in the April 23, 2006 stabbings.

The shocking case made headlines and history -- Steinke’s accomplice was his 12-year-old girlfriend, whose conviction made her Canada’s youngest multiple killer.

Steinke and the girl had been carrying on their illicit romance for only a few months before her parents learned of it and tried to stop it.

The murder plan was hatched online and through phone calls. Through online messages under their user names “souleater” and “runaway devil,” the pair discussed killing the girl’s parents, who opposed the relationship between their 12-year-old daughter and Steinke, who was 23.

The girl, who cannot be named, was also convicted of three counts of first-degree murder.

She is now 18 and is now entering the final phase of a special rehabilitative youth sentence, which is gradual reintegration to society.

When she is 22, she will be free.

She was given the maximum youth sentence of 10 years which includes a four-phase program of stabilization, intensive therapy and transition.

Steinke admitted stabbing the girl’s parents to death, but not the boy. The girl denied any role in the killings.

Steinke, who was sentenced in December 2008, filed an appeal of his judge and jury conviction Jan. 17, 2011.

Normally, appeals are to be filed within 30 days of the court’s decision.

Steinke’s request will be heard by the Alberta Court of Appeal May 15. If his appeal is granted, he has requested to attend the hearing in person. If a new trial is ordered, he is asking to be tried by judge alone.

On the night of the killings, court heard the girl phoned Steinke, who arrived at the family’s darkened house, high on cocaine and drunk.

Both parents confronted Steinke, who was armed with knives. They bled to death in the basement.

Steinke said he never touched the boy upstairs but watched as the girl slit her brother’s throat.

Hours after the killings, the couple was seen kissing and giggling at a house party.

They were arrested with friends the next morning in Leader, Sask.

Steinke told an undercover police officer he tried to talk his girlfriend out of the deadly plan but she wouldn’t have it, and he was a man of his word.

In the days following their arrest, the couple agreed to marry through prison love letters, but the relationship quickly crumbled when they blamed each other for the boy’s stabbing death.