Eid has lost all its meaning, residents of Faridabad's Khandwali village said on 26 June as they mourned the loss of their "son" Junaid by wearing black bands during the special morning namaz.
Four days after 17-year-old Junaid was killed on his way back from Delhi after Eid shopping, despair hung like a shroud over the village with Muslim residents wondering if "the spate of lynchings" would ever end.
"We could not have celebrated Eid with the usual sense of joy considering how Junaid was killed. So we decided to mark our protest by wearing black bands around our arms," Shakeel, a resident of Khandawli in Ballabgarh near Delhi, told reporters.
He claimed Muslims of neighbouring villages were also protesting the incident by wearing black bands during the Eid morning prayers.
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Junaid was stabbed to death on 22 June on a Mathura-bound train, which he had taken with his two brothers after shopping at Delhi’s Sadar Bazar. A group of men hurled communal slurs at the boys and attacked them after an altercation, allegedly over seats.
"When will this stop? After every such incident, the government offers some compensation and people move on. But the question is, will it ever stop?" asked a villager in his 20s.
He also questioned the efficacy of the administration in acting against the accused, wondering why only one arrest had been made in four days.
Before being remanded to police custody by a court in Faridabad district on Saturday, the accused had told reporters that he was in an inebriated state at the time of the incident and had attacked the teenager after being allegedly instigated by fellow passengers.
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