As The Kerala Story, a movie based on the indoctrination of girls by ISIS terrorists, is scheduled to release on 5 May 2023, the cast and crew of The Kerala story revealed in their recent interview to The New Indian, that the scenes in the movie are based on the testimonies given by the victims.
The director of the movie Sudipto Sen revealed that this movie was based on the 2017 Hadiya Case.
Hadiya was a homeopathic medical student from Vaikom, Kerala who was reported missing by her father Asokan K.M, in early 2016. She appaarently abandoned her home since her father forbade her from professing Islam. She left her home wearing hijab and stayed at ith A.S. Zainaba, president of now-banned terror outfit Popular Front of India (PFI)’s women’s wing. She later converted to Islam and married a Muslim man named Shafin Jahan, an active member of the PFI-affiliated Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). While her family holds that she was brainwashed at Satya Sarani (an Islamic conversion centre in Malappuram), forcefully converted and married, Hadiya maintains that she married of her own volition. The marriage which was first annulled by the Kerala High Court was held valid by the Supreme Court based on Jehan’s appeal.
”After research, I realised that it is the sinister plan of ISIS and Al-Qaeda to traffic the girls from Kerala who are vulnerable. In Kerala, the Muslim population is very high, and Christians and Hindus are very few. This triggered Islamic extremists to target Kerala girls. That became The Kerala Story.” said Director Sudipto Sen in an interview to The New Indian.
While speaking about the film, the producer Vipul Shah said that this human tragedy should be told and that the purpose of the movie would be fulfilled if it saves a few girls from falling into the trap.
”When I met girls who were victims but got lucky and came back home, I was in tears listening to their stories. I know when the film releases, I will be told it’s a propaganda film, we are stooges of A, B, C, D, you took money from XYZ to malign a certain religion and community, but the truth is uncomfortable. This truth is going to shake certain institutions.” said Producer about meeting the victims of ISIS.
Vipul Shah also stated that they thought no one would come and act in this film because of the threat that come with it.
The main lead actress of the movie, Adah Sharma said she felt like a lawyer for these girls. ”I am the one who gets to speak for these girls. I am the medium through which this story can be told.” she said.
While addressing the controversy about 32,000 girls, he clarified that ”If you are making a film like this and your facts are not correct, then you will get discredited. The film will be discredited. Because of all of our mistakes, the girls who are suffering will suffer more injustice.”
“There was a reference to the number of women who have been trafficked from Kerala to the Middle East to become suicide bombers – 32,000. This number was doubted when the teaser was released. We have a lot of evidence, but we decided to file an RTI. We got an address to a website that unfortunately doesn’t exist. Everybody can interpret it in their own way.”, he said.
”We went to 14 districts in Kerala and went to the police headquarters to ask for the number of girls missing in the last 10 years, the number of girls rescued, and the number of girls registered. We were told DGP Kerala would get back to us in 15 days. It’s been 4 months since there has been no response.” said director Sudipto Sen.
(With inputs from The New Indian)
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