By Ryan FoleyChristian Post Reporter Thursday, April 11, 2024

A man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for firebombing the headquarters of a pro-life campaigner as one pro-life campaigner insists his sentence did not go far enough.

On Wednesday, the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin announced in a statement that Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison for firebombing the headquarters of the Christian conservative pro-life activist organization Wisconsin Family Action in Madison, Wisconsin, in May 2022.

The office suffered fire damage from Molotov cocktails thrown into the building, and the exterior of the facility was defaced with graffiti, reading, “if abortions aren't Safe then neither are you.”

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The attack was part of a trend of violence and vandalism targeting churches and pro-life advocacy organizations following the May 2022 leak of the US Supreme Court's draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, indicating that the judges were prepared to overturn the Roe v. Wade a ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The US Supreme Court ultimately reversedroe deer a month and a half later, determining that the American Constitution does not contain a right to abortion.

“Roychowdhury's arson was an act of domestic terrorism,” said U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin Timothy O'Shea. “Domestic terrorism is cowardly and deeply undemocratic. It is not speech; it is not an exchange of ideas; instead, it is an attempt to harm or intimidate one's fellow citizens, thereby dividing Americans and weakening the fabric of our democratic society.”

US District Court Judge William Conley offered similar rhetoric during Roychowdhury's sentencing hearing, asserting that the perpetrator “engaged in a deliberate act of terror toward a group advocating a different view.” Conley also concluded that Roychowdhury has “a deep hatred and anger that in his mind justified firebombing a building.”

Roychowdhury was apprehended by authorities at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, as he attempted to flee the country in March 2023, more than 10 months after the firebombing took place.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of attempting to cause damage by fire or explosive in December 2023.

A statement published Wednesday by CompassCare, a network of pro-life pregnancy centers in upstate New York that had one of its own facilities firebombed in June 2022, claims that the sentence Roychowdhury received is inadequate.

The advocacy group lamented that “the sentence ignores conspiracy and domestic terrorism, giving [him a] a lighter sentence for a lighter charge.”

“The verdict would lead the public to believe that this is a simple case of misguided arson instead of a political act representing a multinational Marxist revolution,” said Pastor Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare. Additionally, Harden expressed concern about “the lack of arrests and investigations of violent pro-abortion terror compared to the crushing DOJ/FBI persecution of peaceful pro-lifers during the exact same time frame.”

CompassCare noted that pro-life activists face up to 11 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic in Nashville, Tennessee.

Roychowdhury will not face any fines for firebombing Wisconsin Family Action and “will likely be out in five years,” the pro-life group argues, because “the guideline for Roychowdhury to be eligible for parole is 60 months with time served.”

By comparison, the perpetrator behind the firebombing of Planned Parenthood in Peoria, Illinois, last year faces stiffer sentence of 10 years behind bars and a fine of 1.45 million USD.

CompassCare called the sentencing difference between the two cases “a stark disparity” in the treatment of pro-life activists convicted of crimes compared to their pro-abortion counterparts.