It is irrelevant whether beef was mentioned or not. The fact that a teenager, who not only was a Muslim, but also looked like one – with the external marker of a skull cap – was beaten to death onboard a Mathura-bound train just because of his religious affiliation, raises several questions.
The most disturbing of them is growing suspicion, bordering on hatred, for members of a particular community. A slight provocation is all that is required to push groups or individuals to extreme acts.
Why is this suspicion growing? In everyday conversations, we come across variations of the same narratives – that all Muslim-majority countries are disturbed zones, that the Muslim community’s association with terrorists the world over is a long-established fact, and that all Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.