KOCHI: Amid the raging controversy over the upcoming film 'The Kerala Story', the producers of the film on Tuesday changed the text of the introduction to the film in their latest teasers on
YouTube.
According to the latest description of the trailer, shared on production banner Sunshine Pictures' official YouTube page, 'The Kerala Story' is "a compilation of the true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala... Thousands of innocent women have been systematically converted, radicalized & their lives destroyed..."
In November 2022, the makers unveiled the teaser which claimed that 'The Kerala Story' presents the "heart-breaking and gut-wrenching stories of 32,000 females in Kerala!"
The film slated to release on May 5 created a major controversy when it claimed that 32,000 women have left the state to join the terror group ISIS. As soon as the film's teaser was released, the CPM-led LDF and the opposition UDF had demanded that the film should not be screened.
P K Firoz, the state general secretary of Muslim Youth League (MYL), the youth wing of the IUML, said on Tuesday that the correction in the teaser was the result of the strong opposition from Kerala against the Sangh Parivar propaganda. Earlier MYL had announced a reward of Rs 1 crore for those who produce evidence of 32,000 girls from Kerala having left the state to join ISIS.
A right-wing activist and founder of the Hindu Seva Kendra, Pratheesh Viswanath, also offered Rs 10 crore to prove the opposite -- that no one from Kerala has gone to Syria to join ISIS.
Lawyer and actor C Shukkur wrote on Facebook that he would give Rs 11 lakh to anyone who names at least 32 Kerala women who were converted, and then joined the Islamic State.
Blogger K Nazeer Hussain also said that he would “give Rs 10 lakh to anyone who can produce evidence that women were converted and forced to join the Islamic State”.
The film’s producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah on Tuesday rejected allegations that the film is funded by the BJP, saying as filmmakers they have “nothing to do with any political party” and anything spoken about the film without watching it is “conjecture”. In his reaction, Shah told PTI over phone, “We will choose not to respond to any political party. We are filmmakers and we have nothing to do with any political party stand...” Controversies are just opinions of the people who haven’t seen the film, he added.
Earlier in the day, CPM state secretary M V Govindan alleged the film was an attempt of the BJP and RSS to poison the minds of the people. In a statement supporting the ‘The Kerala Story’, the newly formed People Progressive Party (PPP) said that the protest by some political parties against the movie is double standard.
“Some political parties who supported the drama ‘Kakkukali’ which insults Christian clergy and the novel ‘Meesha’ which insults Hindu women in the name of freedom of expression, are now opposing ‘The Kerala Story’. It shows their double standards and self-deception,” said a statement jointly issued by the party’s state chairman VV Augustin and working chairman Johnny Nellore.
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