Anil Kant, the director general of police in Kerala, issued a directive on Tuesday 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.
In a decade, according to the movie’s teaser, more than 32,000 women from the southern state were converted, with the majority of them being sent to Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria and Afghanistan. Sudipto Sen is the director, and VA Shah is the producer, of the movie.
A journalist from Tamil Nadu named BR Arvindakshan 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.
Also receiving a copy of the complaint was Kerala’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, who forwarded it on to the DGP.
I have sent a mail to the Kerala CM and DGP asking them call the director of “The Kerala Story” Sudipto Sen and investigate the veracity of the teaser,” Arvindakshan posted on his Twitter account.
Later in the letter to the CM, he said the film was against the unity and integrity of the country which will also tarnish the intelligence agencies.
The assertions mentioned in the teaser, according to the police, were made with the intent of tarnishing the state’s reputation and fostering animosity among various communities.
A senior police officer said a case was registered under Sections 153 A &B (promoting disharmony and enmity between different groups based on the ground of faith) and other sections of the Indian penal code.
According to reports, the movie was based on the story of four missing women from Kerala’s north who were found in jails in Afghanistan after their husbands were purportedly killed. The authority to bring them home had been denied two years prior by the ministry of external affairs.
A woman in a veil identified herself as Shalini Unnikrishnan alias Fathima Ba from Kerala and stated in the teaser that she was one of 32,000 converted women from the state who had been deployed to Syria and Yemen to fight for the Islamic State.