The Kerala Story: Journalist seeks action against movie depicting women radicalised to join ISIS

He said the teaser portrayed India's Kerala as a "terrorist state" as he claimed the video claimed it was a "true story set in Kerala".

Chennai: A journalist from Tamil Nadu Aravindakshan B R has written a letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan after having watched the teaser of a to-be-released movie called ‘The Kerala Story’.

The journalist asked the Kerala government to call the director of the movie and investigate the veracity of the released teaser in which the character claimed that 32,000 girls from Kerala were being forcibly converted and then later joined the terrorist group ISIS.

According to Aravindakshan B R, the movie’s teaser was released on November 3, 2022, on a YouTube channel called Sunshine Pictures.

“Produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah, Directed by Sudipto Sen, the teaser depicts the heart-wrenching story of 32,000 women from Kerala who were radicalized to join ISIS (Islamic Iraq and Syria) terrorist groups,” the letter read.

Similarly, Aravindakshan B R has also sent a complaint to Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur and Secretary Apurva Chandra asking them to check the veracity of the content of it.

He also said in the letter that it is imperative on the part of the Union government to thoroughly investigate the source of information based on which the movie was produced.

The trailer, he said in the letter, narrates the story of a Muslim woman in front of an international border.

“In the character played by actress Adha Sharma, she says that she used to be Shalini Unnikrishnan and wanted to serve people as a nurse. She says she was forcibly converted to Islam and renamed Fatima Ba, then joined ISIS and later imprisoned in Afghanistan,” the letter added.

Further in the letter, he said the teaser portrayed India’s Kerala as a “terrorist state” as he claimed the video claimed it was a “true story set in Kerala”.

He added if the movie, which is against the unity and sovereignty of India and tarnishes the credibility of all intelligence agencies, is released in theatres or OTTs with “false information”, it will have bad consequences in society.

“Therefore, I request you to call and inquire the director of the movie, Sudipto Sen, on the basis of which sources this teaser was released,” the journalist wrote in the letter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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