Not one of the hundreds of men gathered outside the Mumbai Suburban Beef Traders’ Association office at Deonar Abattoir knew what would happen next. On March 19, they were waiting impatiently for the association’s meeting to end. In stark contrast to the buzz and chatter of the waiting members was the surrounding silence. The abattoir’s 16 shelters normally house hundreds of bawling, frightened animals waiting for the guillotine. That day it looked disused and abandoned. You could