UPDATE, September 15: DuPage County State's Attorney Robert B. Berlin announced on Tuesday that "after further investigation and the discovery of additional evidence," he has amended the charges against the suspect to include one count of a hate crime.

Leaders at The Sikh Coalition were "relieved" to hear the news.

We are thankful that Robert Berlin and the DuPage County States Attorneys Office have filed a hate crime charge in this case, the Coalitions Legal Director, Harsimran Kaur said in a statement . For the Sikh American community, a formal hate crime charge was never about a harsher penalty, but instead prosecuting the crime for what it was. We cant combat the problem of hatred against minority communities in America unless our elected officials and government agencies acknowledge that the problem exists.

UPDATE, September 11: On Friday, DuPage County State Attorney Robert B. Berlin announced that the suspect is being charged with aggravated battery and described the attack on Inderjit Singh Mukker as a "road rage incident." The Sikh Coalition called the statement "shocking and completely unacceptable" and demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice prosecute the attack as a hate crime.

Requests for comment sent to Berlin were not answered.

EARLIER:

A Sikh-American man was brutally attacked and allegedly called a "terrorist" and "Bin Laden" in a Chicago suburb last Tuesday, Sikh advocacy groups report.

The incident occurred just days before the 14th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Earlier statements from the DuPage State's Attorney's office indicated that the suspect would only be charged with aggravated battery. On Tuesday, Attorney Robert B. Berlin announced that the charges had been amended to include one count of a hate crime.