Was the first fire cracker burst after Virat Kohli’s dismissal? Or was it after Hardik Pandya got run out? No one in Mohad, a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Burhanpur district, is quite sure when the “celebrations”, triggered allegedly by Pakistan’s victory over India in the finals of the Champions Trophy on Sunday, began, an act that led to the slapping of sedition charges — now dropped — against 15 men from the village. No one heard the fire crackers either, or even the pro-Pakistan or anti-India slogans. Not even Subhash Laxman Koli, the complainant.

“I didn’t inform the police,” says Koli. “I went to the police station on Sunday night to help a neighbour who had been taken away for shouting slogans. I did not hear any slogans, though. I didn’t complain about fire crackers either. The police simply made me a witness when I went to the police station on Monday. I am ready to depose, but only in court, in front of a judge; I am scared the police will target me,” says Koli, who is in his mid-20s and repairs dish antennae in the village.