Bhushan Athale, a 49-year-old Indian-origin man from Texas, was given a 26-month prison sentence for making violent threats to Sikh staff of a philanthropic organization in New Jersey. Athale rang the Sikh nonprofit organization’s key phone number and kept many messages warning them to hurt or kill them, cut their hair with a knife, etc. The initial calls were made in 2022, and in January of this year, he admitted to “interfering with officially secured routines” by threatening to use a dangerous weapon and making an federal threat to hurt another man. According to the legal complaint documents that were released when the charges were filed, he threatened to cut off her and other Sikhs ‘” top and bottom” hair with a knife and insulted members of the religious group with vulgar titles and other accusations. He called the same Sikh firm once more in 2023 and left two more voicemails that depicted sexually explicit Sikhs and Muslims. In November 2021, he likewise sent a Muslim partner “hate-fuelled” messages and emails, according to a separate issue against him. Athale told authorities that he hated Muslims because they destroyed India in a phone interview with law enforcement in February 2022, according to the criminal complaint. The Civil Rights Division’s Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet K. Dhillon, said,” The Department of Justice has no compassion for hate-fueled threats of violence in our state,” and we applaud the powerful efforts of US Attorney Alina Habba and her staff in working with us to take this offender to justice.
