We didn't send flight tickets to Salman Rushdie: Kolkata Book Fair organisers

The Kolkata Book Fair organisers today stuck to their contention that neither invitation nor flight tickets were sent to controversial writer Salman Rushdie for attending the Kolkata Literary Meet.

"We neither sent any invitation nor flight tickets to him," Sudhangshu De, secretary of the Publishers and Booksellers' Guild, the organisers of the fair, told reporters

A city-based newspaper today published images of what they claimed were air tickets of Rushdie from Mumbai to Kolkata sent to him by the organisers for attending a session last Wednesday.

Although the Booker Prize winner's name was not included officially on the list of speakers at the five-day KLM which concluded yesterday, both Rushdie and film director Deepa Mehta had claimed the author was invited as a 'surpriseguest'.

The KLM is organised by sports management company Gameplan in association with the Publishers and Booksellers' Guild.

"Since the book fair has patronage of the state government, we work in consultation with them," said Tridib Chatterjee, general secretary of the Guild.

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