“Akela tha to peet diya. Warna itni himmat to unki bhi nahi hai (it happened because our brother was alone. Otherwise, they don’t have the guts),” said Suresh.

“It was raining heavily that day. It had become quite dark by five. They probably took advantage of the dark,” he said.

Asked if the police got his medical examination done, Lokesh said that there were no signs of assault. “I won’t lie. They slapped me and they abused me. There are no wounds,” he said.

So far, the group was speaking on the camera. Three men, who introduced themselves as cousins and neighbours of Lokesh, now stepped aside from the crowd and requested this correspondent to hear them in private.

One of them said the matter is more complex. “Try to go to the root of the problem, please. What has happened is not a one-off incident. Upper caste men bully lower castes all the time,” he said.

He said that lower castes are expected to stick to labour work or their traditional menial occupations. If they deflect, upper castes don’t take it well, especially when the lower castes step into their domain — food. “They don’t like Jaatavs selling food. Come in the evening and ask the thela-wallahs what caste they belong to. Almost everyone will turn out to be a non-Jaatav,” he said.

On Sunday afternoon, the site of the assault was deserted. The men said it’s quite vibrant in the evenings thanks to a number of food carts.

In Mohammadabad, residents criticised the incident and rued that it had brought a bad name to the village. Tarachand, a Brahmin, said that what happened was wrong and the villagers were spitting on the three men. “Poora gaon un par thook raha hai,” he said.

“If you don’t want to eat someone’s biryani, then don’t eat. Why beat him up?” he said.