Rushdie to address festival by video

British author Salman Rushdie was due to speak by video link to a literature festival in India on Tuesday after an apparent threat to his life by mafia hitmen forced him to pull out in person. Some Muslim groups objected to the video plan after lobbying for weeks for Rushdie to be banned from attending the event in the city of Jaipur in a protracted row over alleged blasphemy in his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses". Rushdie withdrew from the festival after Indian intelligence officials warned him that assassins from Mumbai were travelling to Jaipur, though he later said he believed the plot was invented by police to keep him away. "We plan for the video appearance to go ahead, and have been asked by the authorities just to provide some clarifications," Sanjoy Roy, the producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, told AFP. "We know of nothing that should stop us. There is no sign of protests, and we have always been talking to local Muslim groups who say they want everything to be peaceful," he added. Police at the five-day event, a social and business occasion that attracts tens of thousands of Indian and foreign visitors, have been keen to avoid any protests at the venue in the gardens of an old palace. "We have sought specific details from the organisers about the proposed video-conferencing," deputy commissioner of Jaipur Police Vijendra Jhala said on Tuesday, without giving further details. Some Muslim groups said Rushdie, who lived in hiding for 10 years due to death threats over "The Satanic Verses", should not be allowed to participate even by video link. The book, which remains banned in India, is seen by many Muslims worldwide as insulting to Islam. "The presence of Salman Rushdie in any form is objectionable for us," Abdul Latif, secretary of the All-India Milli Council, a Muslim organisation, told AFP. "We are meeting a senior official of the state government to demand a ban on this conferencing," he said. "If it goes ahead as scheduled and he says anything offensive or illegal, we would go for a protest." Rushdie, who was born in Mumbai, vowed to do a video link when he pulled out on Friday, saying on Twitter that he had been told a "mafia don" had issued weapons to two hitmen to kill him. Local politicians in Jaipur later denied reports that the death threat had been concocted by police to avoid demonstrations at the festival. Organisers expressed huge disappointment at the campaign against Rushdie, who appeared at the festival in 2007 without incident, and said freedom of speech in India was at risk. However they also said the festival must operate within the law after four authors were criticised for reading out passages of "The Satanic Verses" from the stage in protest at the attacks on Rushdie. The festival closes on Tuesday after talks from more than 250 speakers including US chatshow queen Oprah Winfrey, biologist and atheist author Richard Dawkins, and Indian best-selling novelist Chetan Bhagat.