Traders on Thursday announced a reward of 10 million rupees (165,000 dollars) for anyone who beheads Salman Rushdie following Britain's decision to award the novelist a knighthood. The reward announcement came during a protest by 200 traders at Aabpara market, one of the main bazaars in the capital Islamabad, an AFP photographer said.
"We will give 10 million rupees to anyone who beheads Rushdie," the secretary general of the Islamabad traders association, Ajmal Baluch, told the cheering crowd. He also called on Islamic countries to boycott British products.
Participants chanted "Cut off the head of Salman Rushdie!" and carried placards calling for Rushdie to be killed. Britain hit back by expressing "deep concern" over comments by religious affairs minister Ijaz-ul Haq, who said that the knighthood justified suicide attacks. He later withdrew the remark.
Haq said on Thursday he had been invited to Britain by a visiting delegation of British officials for guidance on how to lead clerics in a "constructive dialogue." "The visit would also help clear many things and misunderstandings about my remarks about the knighting of Salman Rushdie by Britain," he told AFP.
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