John Brittas, a Rajya Sabha member, wrote to Union home minister Amit Shah requesting that he take action against the preview for Sudipto Sen’s film “The Kerala Story” because it “seriously undermines peace, secularism, and national unity in addition to defaming Kerala.”
Adah Sharma’s character, who is seen as a burqa-clad lady in the contentious teaser, is heard claiming that she was formerly a Hindu woman who had been forcibly converted to Islam, recruited by ISIS, and is now imprisoned in Afghanistan. She continues by saying that 32,000 other Keralan women’s stories were similar to her own.
In the letter to Shah, Brittas said that the widely-circulated teaser that claims to be depicting the story of 32,000 women from Kerala “is absolutely rubbish and fallacious.” He noted with concern that the teaser “may topple down the public tranquillity and the secular fabric of the Nation and intended to defame Kerala.”
“Such dissemination of grossly false information may lead to inconceivable repercussions and unrest in the society and the same will amount to defaming the State as well.”
The CPI(M) leader alleged that the teaser attempts to “picturize a ludicrously fictitious story, claiming as if a true narrative of the actual events.”
“Such deliberate and sinister plot to outrage the religious feelings and promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and upsetting the public tranquility and prejudicial to the national-integration are to be dealt with an iron-fist and attracts culpable responsibility as per various criminal Statutes including, but not limited to, Sections 153A, 153B, 295A and 505 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860,” the letter read.
Brittas further charged the director with intentionally misrepresenting the words of two former chief ministers in order to “weave a malicious thread for the purported movie.”
At no stretch of imagination, these narratives could be considered as accidental, but are consciously intended to defame Kerala and to create polarization in the society. Such mischievous actions are to be nipped in the bud,” he added, urging the ministry to take swift action on the issue.
Meanwhile, Anil Kant, the director general of police in Kerala, issued a directive ordering Thiruvananthapuram police commissioner Sparjan Kumar to file an FIR against the cast and crew of the movie “The Kerala Story” for allegedly presenting the state as a safe haven for terrorists, while a journalist from Tamil Nadu named BR Arvindakshan also wrote to the head of the nation’s film certification board, Prasoon Joshi, and others two days ago asking for a ban on the film unless the producers provide sufficient evidence to support their allegation.