Police in Kerala are investigating a controversial Bollywood movie that portrays the southern Indian state as a hub of Islamic terrorism and compelled conversion.

The Kerala Story, directed by Sudipto Sen, has come below criticism for its fictional depiction of tens of hundreds of ladies from Kerala who it claims had been transformed to Islam and have become terrorists for Islamic State in Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria.

A teaser trailer options an actor taking part in a Hindu girl who turns into a sufferer of an obvious “dangerous game” of conversion. “I wanted to become a nurse and serve humanity,” she says on to the digital camera whereas wearing a niqab. “Now I am Fatima Ba, an Isis terrorist in a jail in Afghanistan. I am not alone.”

The movie trailer goes on toclaim that “there are 32,000 girls like me who have been converted and buried in the deserts of Syria and Yemen. A deadly game is being played to convert normal girls into dreaded terrorists in Kerala … will nobody stop them?”

The film-makers say the movie is predicated on actual data and occasions however haven’t offered any proof or official experiences to again their claims.

There was anger in India’s southern states following the trailer’s launch. BR Aravindakshan, a journalist primarily based within the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, filed a petition to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the workplace of the chief minister of Kerala and the Kerala police accusing the movie of distributing “false information” and stated its contents needs to be investigated and the discharge halted.

After Kerala’s chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, directed the state’s police to analyze the grievance, a legal case has been registered in opposition to the trailer. Police in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram district are investigating allegations of misinformation and spreading of communal hatred.

VD Satheesan, the state meeting opposition chief, stated the movie was “a clear case of misinformation” and referred to as for it to be banned over the chance of “spreading hatred”.

The movie’s occasions seem like impressed by 4 girls from Kerala who transformed to Islam and travelled with their husbands to Afghanistan to affix IS in Khorasan province between 2016 and 2018. Their husbands had been all killed and after surrendering in 2019; the 4 girls are all nonetheless in Afghan jails, with the Indian authorities refusing to take them again.

There is not any proof that there have been hundreds of such instances in Kerala because the movie alleges.

Kerala, thought-about India’s most progressive state with the very best ranges of literacy and mortality, has lengthy been dominated by a closely leftwing, secular authorities. So far it has electorally rejected the Hindu nationalist politics which have come to dominate India’s central authorities and northern states below the ruling Bharatiya Janata get together (BJP). The BJP gained no seats in Kerala within the final normal election.

In response, although, Kerala has been accused by figures within the BJP of changing into a “breeding ground” for Islamic terrorism.

The Kerala Story follows The Kashmir Files, a Bollywood movie that claimed to point out the “real story” of the expulsion of a Hindu group from the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir. The film-makers claimed it was primarily based on actual occasions however had been accused of distorting information and pushing anti-Muslim propaganda. Despite the controversies, it was one in every of India’s most profitable movies on the field workplace this 12 months.