Gangtok, March 10 -- It was Holi. Children were on rooftops, colours were in the air, and the lanes of JJ Colony in Uttam Nagar were alive with the kind of noise that only India's festival of colours can produce. Nobody expected the day to end with a 26-year-old man beaten to death in the street.

Tarun Kumar Butolia had spent March 4 celebrating with friends, completely unaware that a dispute had broken out near his home that afternoon. An 11-year-old girl in his family had been throwing water balloons from a rooftop terrace - aimed at relatives below - when one went astray and splashed a woman from the neighbouring family. The woman objected. Words were exchanged. Apologies were offered and refused. And then it all came apart.

By the t...