Jamaat-e-Islami threatens Bangladeshi Hindus with death and expulsion to convert to Islam and join their organisation
Lalmonirhat, Rangpur District, Bangladesh 
6 September, 2024
Case Summary
Exiled Bangladeshi blogger and human rights activist Asad Noor revealed that members of the radical Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami coerced 27 impoverished Hindus in Lalmonirhat Sadar Upazila into joining their organisation. On September 7, 2024, the group threatened the Hindus with death and expulsion from the country, forcing them to comply. The victims were made to sign forms, given Islamic books to influence them, and took an oath of allegiance under pressure. Hafiz Mohammed Shah Alam, an official from Jamaat-e-Islami, was present during the forced conversion.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This particular case has been classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under the sub-category- Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion, under the core category of Predatory Proselytisation because of the various distinct components that demonstrate the perpetrator's bias against the Hindu faith and the use of threat and coercion to alienate the victims from their Hindu identity. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. In this subcategory, we would only include cases where the victim was harassed, threatened or coerced to convert. Cases where attempts were made to convert but the victim resisted would be documented in another sub-category. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This case can be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime due to the deliberate use of harassment, threats, and coercion aimed at converting individuals to Islam, specifically targeting impoverished Hindus. The tactics employed by the radical Islamist group Jamaat-e-Islami reflect a systematic attempt to strip individuals of their religious identity, illustrating a profound animosity against Hinduism. By threatening victims with death and expulsion from their homeland, the perpetrators not only sought to instill fear but also aimed to erase the victims’ Hindu identity, which they deemed objectionable. The forced signing of forms, receipt of Islamic literature, and coerced oaths of allegiance further underscore the manipulative nature of this coercion, indicating a calculated strategy to undermine and replace the victims’ beliefs with those of Islam. This targeted assault on individuals based on their religious identity aligns with the defining characteristics of hate crimes, where the motivation stems from bias against a particular faith, and this is why this case has been added to the tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
27
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 27
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 27
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 27
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
Unknown
Perpetrators Gender
unknown
Sources 
