BJP leader committed suicide because of pressure to convert to Christianity

Case ID : 388bff5 | Location : Mungeli, Chhattisgarh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 14 July, 2023

Case ID : 388bff5

Mungeli, Chhattisgarh, India

14 July, 2023

BJP leader committed suicide because of pressure to convert to Christianity

Predatory Proselytisation

Suicide after pressure to convert

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Attack resulting in death

Case Summary

Police uncovered the conspiracy behind the death of BJP leader Shailendra Jaiswal in Chhattisgarh’s Mungeli district. Police took 32-year-old Sonia Lakra into custody. She blackmailed and pressured Jaiswal to convert to Christianity. Jaiswal, 44, was found hanging from an electric pole. He was a political representative and ran a kiosk. His family began searching for him when he didn't return home. His body was discovered the next day. Police found six suicide notes in his kiosk mentioning Sonia Lakra, who allegedly forced him to convert and blackmailed him. Jaiswal also mentioned giving her 20,000 rupees. Handwriting experts confirmed the notes' authenticity after seven months of examination.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

There are two distinct threads in the current case. First, the victim was being pressured and blackmailed to convert to Christianity. Further, the victim also committed suicide because of that pressure. 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 have 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 and forceful circumcision. 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 in an attempt to make the Hindu victim abandon his/her professed religion and adopt the religion of the perpetrator. In this sub-category, we would include cases where the non-Hindu perpetrator harassed, threatened or coerced the victim to convert, however, the Hindu victim did not convert to another faith. Cases where the victim was converted owing to the harassment and threats 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. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, owing to the humiliation or pressure/threat, the victim commits suicide. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The pressure/threat that is employed leads to the Hindu victim taking his own life. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing suicide by the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. In this current case, the police divulged that the victim in his suicide notes had mentioned the perpetrator saying that he was being pressured to convert to Christianity. Further, there is evidence that the victim was being harassed, threatened and blackmailed in an attempt to disenfranchise him from his professed faith and convert him to Christianity. Any thread, harassment or blackmail by a non-Hindu perpetrator upon the Hindu victim to convert is based on the perpetrator's animosity towards the victim's faith. this case is therefore being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime.