Zaheer Ahmed had just returned home from work in northern India and stepped out for a smoke before lunch. Minutes later, he was dead, shot in the head.
His death on Dec. 20, and the killing by gunfire of four other Muslim men the same afternoon in the mainly Muslim neighborhood, made it the most intense burst of violence in two weeks of protests.
India has been convulsed by the broadest unrest in at least seven years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government brought in a law that many see as discriminatory against Muslims, who make up 14 percent of the population.