These three are the hamlets of the five Dalits who were lynched to death on October 15 in Jhajjar districtfor hiding a dead cow. In Badshahpur village, Budhram, the father of Dayachandra, one of the five victims,wept bitterly. He kept telling me, ‘‘We worshipped the gau mata, why did they kill my son?’’He, and Ratanlal, the father of another victim Virendra, also converted to Buddhism on July 27. Under pressurefrom the authorities, they are now being forced to claim that they tonsured their heads in‘‘protest’’, not to convert.