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A person was injured when a group of unidentified persons opened fire at him in Basantapur of Omsatiya Rural Municipality-4, Rupandehi district on Sunday night.

Bikash Gurung of Belahiya, Siddharthanagar Municipality sustained bullet injuries on his torso.

He is receiving treatment at the Bhairahawa-based Universal Medical College.

Bed Bahadur Paudel, assistant spokesperson at the District Police Office, Rupandehi, said that police have taken five persons under control for interrogation.

Further investigation into the incident is underway.

Salman Rushdie is “on the road to recovery,” his agent confirmed Sunday, two days after the author of “The Satanic Verses” suffered serious injuries in a stabbing at a lecture in New York, Associated Press reported.

The announcement followed news that the lauded writer was removed from a ventilatorSaturday and able to talk. Literary agent Andrew Wylie cautioned that although Rushdie’s “condition is headed in the right direction,” his recovery would be long. Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and in an eye that he was likely to lose, Wylie had previously said.

“Though his life changing injuries are severe, his usual feisty & defiant sense of humour remains intact,” Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie said in a Sunday statement that stressed the author remained in critical condition. The family statement also expressed gratitude for the “audience members who bravely leapt to his defence,” as well as police, doctors and “the outpouring of love and support.”

Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, pleaded not guilty Saturday to attempted murder and assault charges in what a prosecutor called “a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack” at western New York’s Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center.

The attack was met with global shock and outrage, along with praise for the man who, for more than three decades — including nine years in hiding under the protection of the British government — has weathered death threats and a $3 million bounty on his head over “The Satanic Verses.”

“It’s an attack against his body, his life and against every value that he stood for,” Henry Reese, 73, told The Associated Press. The cofounder of Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum was on stage with Rushdie and suffered a gash to his forehead, bruising and other minor injuries. They had planned to discuss the need for writers’ safety and freedom of expression, Associated Press reported.

Authors, activists and government officials cited Rushdie’s bravery and longtime championing of free speech in the face of intimidation. Writer and longtime friend Ian McEwan labeled Rushdie “an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists” and actor-author Kal Penn called him a role model, “especially many of us in the South Asian diaspora.”

“Salman Rushdie — with his insight into humanity, with his unmatched sense for story, with his refusal to be intimidated or silenced — stands for essential, universal ideals,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a Saturday statement. “Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear.” 

Rushdie, who was born in India to a Muslim family and has lived in Britain and the U.S., is known for his surreal and satirical prose, beginning with his Booker Prize-winning 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” in which he sharply criticized then-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. 

Infused with magical realism, 1988′s “The Satanic Verses” drew ire from some Muslims who regarded elements of the novel as blasphemy. 

They believed Rushdie insulted the Prophet Muhammad by naming a character Mahound, a medieval corruption of “Muhammad.” The character was a prophet in a city called Jahilia, which in Arabic refers to the time before the advent of Islam on the Arabian Peninsula. Another sequence includes prostitutes that share names with some of Muhammad’s nine wives. The novel also implies that Muhammad, not Allah, may have been the Quran’s real author, Associated Press reported.

A man drove his car into a barricade near the US Capitol early Sunday and then began firing gunshots in the air before fatally shooting himself, according to police, who said he did not seem to be targeting any member of Congress, Associated Press Reported.

The incident happened just before 4 a.m. at a vehicle barricade set at East Capitol Street NE and 2nd Street SE in Washington.

It comes at a time when law enforcement authorities across the country are facing an increasing number of threats and federal officials have warned about the potential of violent attacks on government buildings in the days since the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estatein Florida.

The attack is reminiscent of an incident when a man drove a vehicle into two Capitol Police officers at a checkpoint in April 2021, killing an 18-year veteran of the force. And many on Capitol Hill remain on edge after supporters of the then-president stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Authorities said the man, identified as Richard A. York III, 29, of Delaware, crashed into the barricade and that as he was getting out of the car, the vehicle became engulfed in flames. The man then opened fire, firing several shots into the air as police approached.

Capitol Police said the man shot himself as the officers neared. He was later pronounced dead.

Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said officers did not hear the man say anything before he opened fire “indiscriminately” in the street with a handgun and walked toward the Capitol building. Authorities are investigating whether the man may have set his car on fire, the chief said, because the collision did not appear to cause the blaze, according to Associated Press.

Police officers at the scene saw the man fatally shoot himself as they approached, Manger said. 

The chief said investigators located addresses for the man in Delaware and Pennsylvania and learned he had a criminal history in the past decade, though his motive remained unclear and he had no links to the Capitol.,

“We don’t have any information that would indicate his motivation at this point,” Manger said.

Police said “it does not appear the man was targeting any member of Congress” and that investigators are examining the man’s background as they work to try to discern a motive. Both the House and Senate are in recess and very few staff members work in the Capitol complex at that hour.

Authorities said no other injuries were reported and police do not believe any officers returned fire, Associated Press reported.

Dozens of people have died after a fire broke out at a church in Egypt, many of them crushed during a desperate scramble to escape, BBC reported.

Officials say the number of dead is at least 41, with dozens injured. Children are believed to be among the dead.

An electrical fire broke out as 5,000 worshippers gathered for Mass at the Coptic Abu Sifin church in Giza, security sources told Reuters.

The fire blocked an entrance, causing a stampede, they said.

Citing hospital records, CNN reported that some 18 children, aged between 3 to 16 years old, were killed.

Fire services said the exact cause of the fire remains unclear. However, Father Farid Fahmy, from another nearby church in the Imbaba neighbourhood, told the AFP news agency that it was sparked by a short circuit.

"The power was out and they were using a generator," he said. "When the power came back, it caused an overload."

Worshippers have been explaining their moments since the blaze ignited, according to BBC.

"People were gathering on the third and fourth floor, and we saw smoke coming from the second floor. People rushed to go down the stairs and started falling on top of each other," Yasir Munir told Reuters.

"Then we heard a bang and sparks and fire coming out of the window," he said, adding that he and his daughter were on the ground floor and able to escape.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi offered his "sincere condolences to the families of the innocent victims that have passed on to be with their Lord in one of his houses of worship".

He has ordered the armed forces to rebuild the church.

The prosecutor's office said it had sent a team to the scene to investigate the cause of the blaze.

Giza lies just across the Nile from Cairo and is part of the Greater Cairo metropolis.

Coptic Christians make up at least 10 million of Egypt's 103 million people, BBC reported.

Copts claims they face discrimination and play a lesser part in Egyptian public life than their numbers justify.