Savita says the mob had come armed with lathis, and she saw a butchers’ knife in at least one hand. “They left after threatening me that my children will meet the same fate,” she says.

As per Savita, one of the women - Danish’s mother Ameena – sliced her own hand with a blade and rushed out. “We later learnt she went to the police station to file a complaint against us for attacking them,” says Savita.

The daroga (police constable) at the Dilari police station, Vijendra Singh Rathi, corroborated this. He told this correspondent that a woman from Danish’s family did come to the police station that evening saying she was attacked but as soon as she saw members of Gangaram’s family, she fled.

Gangaram’s elder brother Harswaroop lives with his family in the adjoining village of Peepli Umarpur, a few hundred metres away. He says that as soon as he learnt of the attack, he rushed to the spot, hired a car and took the body to a local health centre. The centre referred the body to Moradabad where it was declared brought dead by Cosmos hospital. The family did not have the post-mortem report when this correspondent visited them on 26 June.