A day after a 16-year-old boy was gruesomely killed and his three siblings injured on a Mathura-bound train, the main arrested accused said that he and his friends were attacked them after he was told that the victims were "beef eaters".
The accused, who is yet to be identified, said he believed his friends' word during the incident as he was drunk.
The arrested accused was part a group of 15-20 men who beat up the four boys inside the moving Delhi-Mathura EMU train near Ballabhgarh, Haryana.
The boys were returning after completing their Eid shopping from Delhi's Sadar Bazar on Thursday evening.
The victims alleged that were abused by the attackers and made hostage, while other passengers watched the furore.
The victims have been identified as Hashim, Moin, Mohsin, Shakir and the deceased Junaid.
After the train reached Okhla, a group of 15-20 men entered the coach and asked them to vacate the seats.
"I gave my seat to an older man, but they kept insisting that my brothers should also get up, to which my brothers resisted. It was then we were abused and racist slurs were passed against us. They called us traitors, even our topi was snatched," recalled Hashim.
Seeing that things were getting out of hand, the victims tried to get down at Faridabad. However, the men stopped them from getting down.
They then called their brother Shakir and two others, in Ballabhgarh.
Shakir and his friends boarded the moving train to save his brothers.
An argument then broke out over seats and soon turned communal, as the mob repeatedly called the brothers 'anti-nationals' and 'beef eaters'.
The accused also reportedly threw the victims' skull caps on the floor and taunted them with communal slurs before starting to stab them.
"Some men held us, while one of them started stabbing Shakir with a knife, I was also stabbed two times and later they stabbed Junaid multiple times. At Asaoti Railway station, the attackers got down and ran away. We got down and called an ambulance."
Junaid was rushed to Civil Hospital in Palwal, where doctors declared him brought dead. Shakir, meanwhile, is undergoing treatment at AIIMS.
Earlier, the police had registered a case only under sections of murder and causing hurt using a weapon.
The police are now looking for the weapon used in the crime and will also record statements of other eyewitnesses.