Rushdie’s Satanic Verses returns to Indian bookshops after 36 years

Book banned since 1988 is selling out' after import bar was overturned due to missing paperwork

Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel The Satanic Verses - which led to a fatwa threatening his life, forcing him into hiding for a decade - has finally returned to bookshops in India, the land of his birth.

The novel, inspired by the life of the prophet Muhammad, became the focus of a fierce global debate about freedom of speech when Iran's then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, placed a bounty on Rushdie's head due to its supposed blasphemy. The book was banned in India by Rajiv Gandhi's government in 1988 after riots erupted over its contents.