Let me tell you a hypothetical story. 

In the middle of a sunny day, a man stood on top of a seven story building. He looked down to the bustling road and the hundreds of people hurrying to wherever they were going in their lives. He used to be one of them. But now, he had nowhere to go. He came up the building to end his life.

Cautiously, he climbed onto the ledge. His necktie was fluttering in the wind, subtly flapping against his neatly tucked light blue formal shirt. He wanted to end this quickly, but now that he was here, he realized that it was not as easy as he thought.

One man on the street accidentally looked up for no reason at all and spotted the man on the ledge. At first, the information did not register in his head. He just stood there looking at the man above, silently. Someone else on the street followed the first's eyes, and soon there were many people looking at the man on the ledge. They all understood what was going to happen at different times, until one of them shouted, “That man is going to jump! He is going to die!”

As if jerked from slumber, everyone started saying the words out loud. They began trying to communicate with the suicidal man, hoping they can talk him out of ending his life, but the road was just too loud. As the crowd grew larger, their sounds grew louder, and less coherent.

The man on the ledge looked down. He knew all the people down on the ground are trying to tell him not to jump. He also knew that if he jumped now and there is a crowd below, he may fall on top of someone else. He did not know if such a fall will kill him or not, but it opens up a possibility of killing an innocent person. He hesitated.

Some people on the street broke away from the crowd and hurried up the building. They were determined to stop him. Nobody had the freedom to end their life, because their life was not theirs alone.

The man on the ledge took too much time to act. He soon had a bunch of people around him forcefully pulling him away from the ledge and to safety. He did not want to be saved, but he did not put up a fight.

The crowd on the ground cheered. The savior group brought the man down so that everyone who was involved in this incident so far, however passive, may understand what was troubling the victim. Maybe they can make him understand that suicide is a sin. Maybe they can make him understand that life is precious.

The man started sobbing, telling the crowd how he lost his entire family in his village, killed by violent a mob. The sympathetic crowd asked him who it was and why they did such a thing. He told them that they were a small Muslim family in the village. The crowd became less sympathetic on an average.

He told them that his father worked in a small dairy farm where there were cows and buffaloes. One day, one of the cows died, and the owners being religious, sent all the workers home early. His father finally had some time and luckily some money on him, so he bought some mutton on the way home. People who watched him saw that he was carrying meat, and the bag was not the usual opaque black. In less than an hour, a huge mob surrounded their house, accusing them of eating cow meat. The frightened family locked their doors while the father tried to negotiate with the angry villagers. They did not listen. By brute force, they knocked the door down and began hitting the people in the household with sticks, rods and other weapons. The entire family soon succumbed to the injuries.

The man stopped sobbing. The not so sympathetic crowd asked him why they did not think it was not appropriate to eat meat and celebrate when a sacred cow had died in the village. The man looked at them, bewildered. Another question was why was the carry bag not the usual opaque black. Someone in the crowd answered that maybe the meat really did not come from a meat shop. The rest murmured in agreement.

It did not take long for the crowd to come to the conclusion that the meat was not from a goat, but from the dead cow itself. Maybe the cow did not die on its own, maybe the father killed the cow so that he can have the meat.

The man was trembling with fear. The crowd did not let him talk. He was completely surrounded and he had nowhere to run. He did not want to die anymore, but that choice did not remain in his hands. The angry crowd shouted at the man for being born to a cow murderer. They said that he has the same blood, and he will soon try to kill their mothers.

A stone whizzed towards the man and hit him hard on the forehead. Blood was gushing out of the wound. Before long, more stones were pelted at the man. Those who were not stoning him, started beating him up. He fell to the ground. The mob began stomping the man.

By the time the police arrived, the man was dead.