USCIRF glorifies Islamist Sharjeel Imam as ‘religious freedom advocate’: Read about his involvement in anti-Hindu Delhi riots and the outfit’s anti-India propaganda

· OpIndia

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has sparked fresh controversy after sharing a post on its official X account on Friday, 13th November, portraying anti-India Islamist Sharjeel Imam as a victim of religious persecution and describing him as an advocate of religious freedom. The commission’s post has drawn attention for presenting Imam’s detention in connection with the anti-Hindu Delhi riots case as an issue of religious freedom. 

In its post, USCIRF wrote, “Sharjeel Imam is a Muslim man detained in India for his religious freedom advocacy.” Alongside this statement, the commission also shared a link to an older article of 2nd August on its website, asking readers to “Read his profile”. The post effectively presented Imam’s anti-CAA activities and his subsequent arrest through the lens of religious freedom, without adequately addressing his controversial speeches, separatist statements and role in the anti-Hindu violence that rocked northeast Delhi in February 2020.

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The latest anti-India post has once again raised questions about USCIRF’s approach towards India and its tendency to portray anti-India Islamist and UAPA accused facing serious criminal charges as victims of religious persecution. Imam is an accused in the larger conspiracy case related to the February 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots, which claimed 53 lives and left hundreds injured.

India’s US Envoy Vinay Kwatra hits back at USCIRF over Sharjeel Imam remarks

Following the commission’s post, India’s Ambassador to the United States, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, issued a formal rebuttal on X rejecting USCIRF’s characterisation of the case and questioning the body’s authority to comment on Indian judicial proceedings. Kwatra asserted that the commission possesses no legal or moral standing to evaluate the constitutional rights of Indian citizens.

In a strongly worded post on X, Kwatra rejected the commission’s portrayal of Imam’s detention as a matter of religious freedom. He accused USCIRF of making partisan, ill-informed and biased observations about India’s constitutional commitment to religious freedom and equal rights for people of all faiths.

“USCIRF has no locus standi to sit in judgment over the constitutional rights of Indian citizens. Its habitual partisan, ill-informed, and jaundiced assessments cannot diminish India’s constitutional commitment to religious freedom and equal rights for all faiths,” Kwatra said.

He further questioned the commission’s approach and asked it to examine its own biases instead of commenting on India’s internal affairs.

“India flourishes, defying the agenda-driven partisan narratives of the USCIRF. Taking the same liberty that USCIRF so readily assumes, a word of advice: introspect on your own prejudices and stop lecturing others,” he added.

USCIRF’s profile of Sharjeel Imam whitewashes his separatist speeches

The article linked by USCIRF also follows the same narrative. Instead of presenting the allegations and evidence against Imam in a balanced manner, the commission repeatedly describes him as someone detained for his religious freedom advocacy.

The USCIRF article reiterates the assertion that “Sharjeel Imam is detained for his religious freedom advocacy.” It further claims that, “In January 2020, authorities arrested Imam, a Muslim student activist, for participating in peaceful protests opposing the religious discriminatory Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019 and January 2020.” 

For USCIRF, the anti-Hindu riots, which claimed 53 lives and injured around 200, were a peaceful protest for religious freedom.

To substantiate its summary of the case, the USCIRF profile cites coverage from several leftist propaganda outlets such as Scroll, The Quint, and Article 14.

What the commission’s profile largely fails to explain is why Imam became a controversial figure in the first place. He came under the scanner of investigating agencies following his speeches at various anti-CAA protest sites, particularly his remarks about disrupting connectivity between the northeastern states and the rest of India.

Imam is infamous for his January 2020 speech at Aligarh Muslim University, in which he spoke about cutting off the Siliguri Corridor, which he called India’s Chicken’s Neck. The narrow stretch of land connects the northeastern states with the rest of the country.

In viral videos of the speech, Imam can be heard saying that if five lakh people were organised, they could permanently or temporarily cut off the Northeast from the rest of India. 

Sharjeel Imam’s Islamist posts, anti-Hindu remarks and hostility towards the Indian Constitution

Imam’s controversial views are not limited to his speeches and his role during the anti-Hindu Delhi riots. His several social media posts and his September 2026 interview with the Propaganda outlet ‘The Quint’ have further shown his ideological positions and anti-India stance.

In an interview with The Quint published on 29th September, 2026, Imam articulated sharp criticisms of the Indian state, democracy, and constitutional secularism. 

During the conversation, he described the Indian Constitution as “fascist” and a “roadblock to the dignified existence” of Muslims, while characterising secularism as a “lie and a trap.” His remarks about Hindus were particularly controversial. Imam argued that Hindus, irrespective of their political affiliations, were united in denying Muslims political power. He also portrayed the secular and Hindutva frameworks as fundamentally similar from the perspective of Muslims and other marginalised communities.

During the conversation, Imam also expressed admiration for the ideological architect behind the Pakistan Movement, Muhammad Iqbal and referred to his writings as important to his understanding of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. He criticised Jawaharlal Nehru’s The Discovery of India, describing its account of Indian civilisation as an exercise in mythmaking, while invoking the ideas of Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

His comments on Partition were also contentious. He blamed what he described as Brahminical forces within the Congress for the division of India, while defending the Muslim League’s position in the negotiations preceding Partition. He further questioned the idea of a common Indian national identity and argued that the country should be understood through separate religious identities.

Imam’s earlier social media activity also attracted criticism for its remarks about Hindu religious practices. 

In a Facebook post dated 22nd September, 2019, Imam criticised the celebration of Durga Puja, referring to the festival as a period of “superstition” and using Islamic theological terms such as butparasti (idolatry) and husn-e-butaan to describe Hindu religious customs. 

In another post dated 7th November 2019, Imam discussed what he described as different forms of shirk, an Islamic theological concept referring to associating partners with Allah. His classification included but-parasti (idol worship), watan-parasti (love or devotion towards one’s country), insaan-parasti (humanism) and dahr-parasti (secularism or devotion to the worldly).

Imam’s role in the February 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots

Legally, UAPA accused Sharjeel Imam remains an undertrial prisoner in the larger conspiracy case surrounding the February 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, which resulted in 53 deaths and hundreds of injuries. The Delhi Police Special Cell maintains that Imam’s speeches and organisational activities were central to orchestrating the blockades that escalated into communal violence.

Imam delivered inflammatory speeches at different locations, including Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, Asansol in West Bengal and Chakand in Bihar, in December 2019 and January 2020.

Investigators also revealed that he mobilised Muslims through a WhatsApp group called ‘Muslim Students of JNU’ and helped prepare and distribute pamphlets related to the anti-CAA agitation.

Imam was arrested on 28th January 2020 and subsequently faced charges under various provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code.

USCIRF’s anti-India propaganda: Calls for sanctions against RAW and RSS

The controversy surrounding Sharjeel Imam is not an isolated incident; rather, it is part of a broader, systematic pattern of anti-India propaganda pushed by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The commission has repeatedly recommended punitive measures against India and questioned several decisions taken by the Indian government, particularly those concerning national security, religious conversions, citizenship and the management of religious properties.

For several consecutive years, including in its 2026 Annual Report and August 2026 Country Brief, the commission has aggressively pushed for the U.S. Department of State to designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), accusing the world’s largest democracy of “systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations”. 

Beyond this designation, USCIRF’s recommendations reflect a deeply intrusive and entitled agenda: it has urged the U.S. government to freeze the assets of and impose targeted sanctions on Indian officials, India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It has further demanded that Washington link bilateral trade and security assistance to religious freedom metrics, force India to permit in-country assessments by U.S. bodies, and pass the Transnational Repression Reporting Act to scrutinise Indian actions abroad. 

Critics of USCIRF argue that the commission’s reports rely on selective data and ignore violence or discrimination faced by the majority Hindu community. For example, commentators have pointed to USCIRF’s coverage of the April 2025 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, in which 26 predominantly Hindu tourists were killed by militants linked to The Resistance Front (TRF) after being asked to recite the Islamic Kalma. Critics contend that USCIRF’s reporting placed disproportionate emphasis on subsequent anti-Muslim sentiment in India rather than adequately condemning the targeted religious nature of the terrorist attack itself.

What makes USCIRF’s reporting fundamentally flawed and problematic is its reliance on selective data, deliberate omissions, and an outright refusal to document religious persecution when the victims are Hindus. A glaring example of this bias is evident in the commission’s coverage of the April 2025 Islamic terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. In that attack, 26 predominantly Hindu tourists were singled out by terrorists linked to The Resistance Front (TRF), checked for circumcision, and forced to recite the Islamic Kalma before being executed for their faith. 

Instead of squarely condemning this targeted religious slaughter of Hindus, USCIRF’s reporting minimised the jihadist violence to focus disproportionately on subsequent anti-Muslim sentiment in India, effectively shielding Islamist terror behind a narrative of minority victimhood.

This pattern of distortion extends directly to how USCIRF misrepresents legitimate Indian legislation and routine law enforcement as state-sponsored persecution:

Mischaracterising the Waqf Amendment Act: Passed in 2025 to overhaul the management of Waqf properties, the legislation was framed by USCIRF as an attempt to bring Muslim houses of worship under state control. In doing so, the commission completely ignored the rampant corruption and unchecked land-grabbing enabled by Section 40 of the 1995 Waqf Act, which allowed Waqf Boards to arbitrarily claim ownership over entire Hindu villages, ancient temples like the 1,500-year-old Sundareswarar Temple in Tamil Nadu, and public infrastructure. Worse still, when mentioning deaths during the anti-Waqf violence in West Bengal, USCIRF conveniently omitted the brutal murder of Hindu residents Hargobind Das and his son Chandan Das by a mob in Shamsherganj, a crime for which 13 individuals were convicted in December 2025. 

Defending fraudulent conversions and dismissing “Love Jihad”: USCIRF routinely attacks state-level anti-conversion laws, enforced across 13 Indian states, including the revival of Arunachal Pradesh’s 1978 law, by portraying them as prohibitions on voluntary changes of faith. Under the banner of “Imprisonment of Religious Minorities,” the commission has even defended individuals arrested for illegal proselytisation, such as American citizen James Watson and resident Manoj Govind Kolha in Thane, Maharashtra, while also complaining about the visa denial to American evangelist Franklin Graham. This framing deliberately obscures the reality of coercive and inducement-based conversions, such as fraudulent faith-healing gatherings (Changai Sabhas) that prey on vulnerable populations, while dismissing terms like “love jihad” as derogatory without acknowledging documented cases of coerced interfaith conversions targeting Hindu women. 

Demonising the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS): USCIRF’s call to sanction the RSS exposes a profound ignorance of Indian civil society. The RSS is a massive, decades-old cultural and social service organisation deeply involved in education, rural development, and disaster relief across India. Equating a mainstream humanitarian and nationalist organisation with violent extremist groups is a baseless smear designed to malign India’s leadership and civil institutions. 

USCIRF is led by Pakistani-American activist Asif Mahmood, who has repeatedly targeted India

The root of USCIRF’s institutional hostility toward India becomes clear when examining its leadership. The commission is chaired by Asif Mahmood, a Pakistani-American physician and so-called human rights activist who assumed the role of Chair in 2026. Rather than maintaining the impartiality expected of an international monitoring body, Mahmood has consistently used his official platform to peddle unsubstantiated anti-India conspiracy theories and interfere in India’s domestic affairs.

In April 2025, Mahmood was found peddling the conspiracy theory about India’s supposed involvement in the killing of Khalistani extremists in the United States, Canada and Pakistan. Asif Mahmood did not provide any evidence to substantiate his outrageous claims. 

His hostility extends across nearly every major domestic issue in India: he has accused New Delhi of “encroachment” in Jammu and Kashmir, attacked the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as discriminatory, and even questioned the construction and inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya as a threat to religious freedom. 

Furthermore, Mahmood falsely claimed that the Uttar Pradesh government shut down 25,000 madrassas for electoral gains, deliberately omitting the fact that the matter originated from an Allahabad High Court judicial ruling regarding the constitutionality of the 2004 Madarsa Education Act, which was subsequently addressed by the Supreme Court of India. 

Under this leadership, the latest USCIRF post portraying UAPA accused Sharjeel Imam as a religious freedom advocate has added another chapter to this controversy. With posts that openly echo Pakistani state narratives and provide cover for Khalistani and Islamist elements, USCIRF has forfeited any claim to objectivity, operating instead as an ideological advocacy group hostile to India’s sovereignty and democratic institutions. 

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