Security in the city has been tightened today with some Muslim organisations announcing an award of Rs one lakh [100,000] to ’blacken’ the face of controversial writer Salman Rushdie, who is here after a gap of 16 years. "We have taken appropriate security precautions and are taking necessary steps to ensure that there is no law and order promblem," additional police commissioner (Special Branch) Bipin Bihari said. The Muslim organisations have also planned to stage a ’dharna’ today at Azad Maidan to protest the writer’s visit to the city and the "tacit approval of the government to his arrival here," sources from the protesting organisations said. Rushdie, accompanied by his campanion, Padma Lakshmi, is camping at Taj Mahal Hotel in south Mumbai. The Booker Award winner writer, against whom Muslim clerics had issued a ’fatwa’ for his alleged blasphemous writings about Islam in his book ’The Satanic Verses’, had been staying in a high-security area in the United Kingdom so far. The All India Sunni Jamiatul Ulema, the Raza Academy, the Anjuman Barkaate Raza, the Tanzeem Aimmae Masjid and other Muslim organisations in a joint release issued here yesterday, had said "Muslim community is angered by the decision of the administration to allow Rushdie to stay in a Mumbai Hotel."
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