No peace with ultras who burnt my Mumbai: Rushdie

London: Indian-origin writer Salman Rushdie says he is "desperately upset" by the terrorist attacks on Mumbai - his place of birth - and strongly disagrees with the view that peace ought to be made with Taliban militants in Afghanistan."I do think of Bombay as my hometown," he told The Daily Telegraph in an interview."Those are the streets I walked when I was learning to walk. And it's the place that my imagination has returned to more than anywhere else.”Panel formed to probe Mumbai terror attacks"So, of course, I have been desperately upset by what has happened there. It's very strange that the three cities I have loved most - London, New York and Bombay - have been subject to major terrorists attacks in the last decade."Rushdie strongly disagreed with the view expressed by the departing British commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, who says Taliban could play a part in a future Afghan government.Full coverage: Mumbai 26/11"That is not my view," Rushdie told the paper, repeating with added emphasis: "That Is Not My View."What, these are the people you are going to make peace with? The people who have just burnt my hometown? No, thank you. It seems to me beyond moronic to think of such a thing. There are people in the world you have to defeat. And these are those people, in our time."The interview, published on Monday, was held when the terrorist siege of buildings in Mumbai was coming to an end.

Rushdie glad he wrote 'Satanic Verses'

London, October 1: Notwithstanding the death threats he faced for over a decade for penning the controversial book, India-born author Sir Salman Rushdie says he is still glad that he wrote 'The Satanic Verses'.
Rushdie's remarks about the book he wrote 20 years ago came in the second of a series of interviews with leading cultural figures filmed exclusively for 'The Times' daily.

He said he would regret not having written a book confronting major religious and philosophical questions.

"The question I'm always asking myself is; are we masters or victims? Do we make history or does history make us? Do we shape the world or are we just shaped by it?

"The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events, I think, a great question and one that I have always tried to ask. In that sense I wouldn't not have wanted to be the writer that asked it," he told Australian broadcaster Cilve James.

Rushdie's comments came at a time when extremists have again driven a literary figure into hiding – this time Martin Rynja, a Dutch-born London publisher who had agreed to release 'The Jewel of Medina', a controversial novel about the Prophet Muhammad.

Rynja's home in Islington was firebombed on Saturday. Under-cover police tipped him off hours earlier and arrested three men from East London.

Rushdie, in the interview, said he is an atheist who found dead religions "much more attractive" but added he has nothing against true believers until their faith spills over into the public sphere and becomes "my business".

The Satanic Verses was banned in India, and Ayatollah Khomeini, then supreme leader of Iran, in 1989 issued a 'fatwa' calling on all Muslims to murder Rushdie forcing him to go into hiding for the best part of ten years.