A scene in The Kashmir Files shows a Hindu woman being stripped and sawed alive by militant in the 1990s as her Muslim neighbours looked on.
The scene was recreated by using a mannequin from a store, a pile of wooden logs, and a bicycle wheel.
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The installation was put on a vehicle. Anupam Kher, who plays the woman's father-in-law in the film, looked distraught. Wake up Hindus, if other states in India become Kashmir, was a warning in bold text.
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To maximize the impact of the installation, the man who owns a sand supply business got a friend to mix the woman's sobs from the film with a music track with loud cries.
On Ram Navami, the birthday of Lord Ram, this soundtrack became part of a loud noise at the town square, where Hindu groups had been given permission to assemble at 2 pm before proceeding on a tour.
At 5 pm, when Muslims gathered at the mosque for Asar prayer, the procession had not left. Videos show disc jockeys playing loud music as thousands of Hindus spilled over from the chowk into nearby lanes. Some waved flags of the rule of Ram.
Muslims say members of the procession first threw them at the police when stones began to fly.
Rioting and fire broke out in several neighbourhoods of the town. Siraj Bi ran from her house as a mob set it on fire. The elderly widow is a crafter. The clothes she sewed for her daughter's dowry were among her belongings that were destroyed that day.
Nannu Bai Bhandole ran for her life when the front part of her house was engulfed in flames. The car that the woman's son had purchased on a loan was reduced to a burnt carcass.
A steady stream of people were brought to the hospital. One of them was 16-year-old Shivam Shukla, who had to be moved to an intensive care unit after sustaining head injuries. A body was brought to the mortuary with wounds all over. Ibraish Khan was identified four days later.
In this hardscrabble town of about 125,000 people, about 60% of them are Hindu, and the rest are Muslim. Festivals in both communities have become displays of male aggression in recent years.
The Ram Navami riot was not seen as worthy of front-page news in India, after all, it was just one of many places that had seen the violence that day.
The next morning, what followed grabbed international attention.
The houses of those who throw stones will be turned into a pile of stones according to the home minister of the state.
By noon, bulldozers came crashing down on the modest single-room home built on government land using the prime minister's housing scheme funds. The front of the chemist shop was shaved off. Wasim Sheikh's kiosk was destroyed.
A document that a senior official of the state home department sent to reporters stated that 49 properties were demolished in the day. All were owned by Muslims.
Even the affluent were demolished the next day. The administration claims that the hotel front was jutting out on the road, but the buildings next to us were not.
The administration says the demolitions were part of an anti-encroachment drive. On the condition of anonymity, two senior officials admitted that they were done to restore peace and control the situation.
As one put it, the Hindus and Muslims were convinced that their homes and properties had been attacked.
The second official said there was a lot of pressure.
Property owners disagree with the allegations of illegality. They say they weren't served notice required by law. This was denied by the district collector. She told the reporter to file a Right to Information request when she asked for a copy of the notices.
More than half of the gathering had already moved forward, she said, in response to a question about whether action had been taken against the organizers of the Ram Navami procession.
The order of India's ruling party has led to copy-cat action in Gujarat and North Delhi. Muslim fears around the country have been deepened by this.
The Kashmir Files continue to inflame passions, despite the fact that the demolitions haven't mitigated Hindu anger.
A cavalcade of cars wound down the lanes of Tawadi Mohalla, an inner-city neighbourhood where Hindus and Muslims live in close proximity to each other. The curfew was still in place in the town nearly two weeks after the riots erupted.
The district collector stepped out of one of the cars as the cavalcade stopped. She handed a compensation cheque to an elderly Muslim couple.
When she reached the second house, I noticed a man with a saffron colored outfit around his neck. He was a member of Parliament. He didn't meet the Muslim family. He only went to Hindu homes during the evening.
Although he had heard the sounds of the official cavalcade in his neighbourhood, he had not left his house. The former assistant sub-inspector of police told me that he knew the BJP MP was there to hear only one side.
The Hindu gathering in a nearby village was told that those who threw stones instead of flowers would need to be prepared. His speech went viral.
Ahmad is a former policeman who lives in a predominantly Hindu area. He said his neighbour threw stones at his house. His nephew recorded a video of the Hindu rioters on the roof before they threw stones at him. The compound of Ahmad's house was hit by petrol bombs as the rioting intensified. Three motorcycles were destroyed.
Ahmad was hit with a baton and abused by a policeman when he tried to meet the official team.
It took Ahmad over a week to register a First Information Report after he had been in the police force for four decades.
An officer at the Khargone police station said that 71 first information reports had been registered so far. 175 people were arrested in the town. All but 14 were Muslim.
In Teba Nagar, Shabana Khan's husband had been prescribed surgery to remove a callus on his foot. She said that he was barely able to walk when he was arrested.
Rioters slashed Mehrun Khan's face with a sword before they entered and stole her house. She didn't want to go to the hospital with the police.
The family moved to another part of the town because they were afraid of the police.
The family has yet to receive any financial assistance from the administration. On April 23, her daughter-in-law took her to the tehsil office to file a compensation claim, but they came back empty-handed.
Altaf Raja, who serves as the Muslim community's representative in the town, said that most of what happened in the days after Ram Navami was the same.
He said that Muslim riot-victims avoided going to the police station to file complaints because they were Wary of the police. The official tally reflected more losses on the Hindu side and more criminal cases against Muslims. The media played videos of Muslim rioters on a loop while blanking out videos of Hindu rioters.
Raja said all this was familiar. The demolitions were new.
Amjad Khan is the owner of a three-unit strong business that makes and sells biscuits under the brand name Best Bakery.
A well-known face of his community, Khan said he is often asked by the police to help maintain peace in the town.
On the day of Ram Navami, he stood outside the mosque and asked Muslim boys to leave.
After the violence broke out, Khan spent three hours combing the lanes. I cursed them and said that this will douse the fires.
He went to the police station the next day and was told that he had been seen in the footage.
He reminded them that he had been enlisted by the police station in charge and the sub-divisional police officer.
Now you will go to jail, said the constable. Your home and bakery will be demolished.
The chief municipal officer phoned him at 8 am the next morning, asking him to send official documents related to his business over the internet. I've followed every norm.
A municipal team arrived outside of his properties. Khan panicked. He asked his wife and children to leave the house while he went to the police station. He met the additional police Supt. in the presence of the sub-divisional officer who vouched for his role as a civil police volunteer.
Khan was asked to follow the police officer as he drove to his bakery. The chief municipal officer, the district collector, and the divisional commissioner of Indore were present when the bulldozers arrived.
According to Khan, the police officer told the municipal officer to spare his home and two bakeries. She said he didn't have the necessary building permission for it. It violated the marginal open space norm. He claimed that she looked at him and mumbled that it was the police who had given them his name.
The chief municipal officer did not respond to the question. When asked if the police had anything to do with the conversation he had with municipal officials about Khan, the additional police superintendent said the police have nothing to do with it.
Amjad Khan thinks he was targeted because of his mistaken identity. He pulled out a newspaper article that said that Amjad Khan was among the rioters who burned his house.
The bulldozers landed outside Super Bakery run by the other Amjad Khan after they pulled away from Best Bakery. biscuits were ground to dust under the weight of falling concrete and metal
The owner of Super Bakery is on the run. Ameena Khan said that their losses were over Rs 30 lakh.
It isn't just municipal bulldozers that have targeted the properties of affluent Muslims. Three industrial units on the outskirts of the town caught fire in the days after the riots.
The plastic recycling unit was set up by Arif Sufi. His father broke his fixed deposits and his mother sold her jewellery to fund his initial investment.
Sufi's business had an annual turnover of Rs 60 lakh before a fire destroyed it on April 16.
Four days after the riots, a group of men came to the industrial area to look for Muslim-owned factories, Sufi said as he fought back tears.
The man said that he had been targeted because of his religion.
Hindus in Khargone are angry despite the losses of Muslims.
This is a common sentiment in the town, even among those who did not suffer losses in the riot. It is eerily similar to the statement made by the leader of the party in Delhi on the evening of Ram Navami. He said that if Hindus did not draw lessons from The Kashmir Files, then similar films would be made about other places.
The administration had to divert a section of the police force away from Khargone because of the large gathering and the presence of Mishra. After the riot, he said, he realized that The Kashmir Files was being discussed in the town.
The Ram Navami violence has confirmed the fears of The Kashmir Files. In a Hindu-majority town, local Hindus now see echoes of Muslim-majority Kashmir, where the version shown in The Kashmir Files portrays Muslims as a blood-thirsty community.
Even my nine-year-old granddaughter now fears rape, because of the man who shouted in anger as he accosted the MP.
The state government is reinforcing the fears. In an interview, the agriculture minister and district in-charge said that what was shown in The Kashmir Files has happened in Khargone.
The film was endorsed by the entire top brass of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The chief minister gave half-day of leave to the policemen to watch the film. There were free shows of the film organised by leaders.
The daily-wage worker said that all this was done to create a mahaul.
After his house was burned down in the riot, Nannu Bai Bhandole's son grew curious about The Kashmir Files. The two houses next to him had been purchased by Muslims.
One of them was not open. There was a sign on the wall that said "This house is up for sale".
Next time, their side will burn ours, explained Wahida Khan, who sat wielding tailoring chalk on fabric. It's better for us to leave.
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