One morning, returning from visiting his sister, an 80-year-old Muslim man was lynched in Sitamarhi

'...The rumour of a stone from a mosque damaging the arm of a Durga statue continued to circulate through the night, and the next morning thousands of people gathered for the Maa Kaali procession. They defied the district administration by insisting on taking the procession though prohibited routes passing through narrow lanes in areas where Muslim residents lived in large numbers, and by shouted frenzied poisonous slogans against Muslims. The crowd continued to swell, and many came armed with lathis, sticks, spears, iron pipes, axes and swords. Along the way, they set fire to Muslim shops and houses.

By the time the procession reached the central Gaushala Chowk in the Sitamarhi market, the mood was feverish. Many of the small fruit and vegetable shopkeepers in the Chowk were Muslim, and they had closed shop and rushed home. It was about 11 in the morning when an unsuspecting Zainul Ansari was returning home after calling on his sister. People had warned him that morning about rising tensions, but he brushed them aside, saying that no one would touch him. He was wrong. The feverish mob was thirsting for revenge against the allegedly broken arm of the Durga statue. Zainul Ansari was visibly Muslim. No one knows exactly how it started, but the crowd turned into a lynch mob and fell upon Ansari, first raining blows on him with their sticks and iron pipes....'

[Full piece on Scroll.]