KERALA - Police in Kerala have sought legal advice on a complaint about a movie teaser that is sparking controversy in the southern Indian state. In the teaser - for an upcoming movie called The Kerala Story - an actress claims her character is one among 32,000 women from the state who were “converted” into Islamic terrorists. Some politicians from the state have called for the film to be banned. A journalist has written to the state’s chief minister seeking an inquiry. The office of the chief minister referred the letter, written by Arvindakshan BR to the police.
“Investigation has started. We have sought legal opinion on the letter as to what action can be initiated,” said Sparjan Kumar, Police Commissioner of Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. In the teaser, a burkha-clad woman says that her name was Shalini Unnikrishnan and she had wanted to become a nurse.
“Now I am Fatima Ba, an IS terrorist in a jail in Afghanistan,” she says, adding that there are “32,000 girls like her, who have been converted and buried in the deserts of Syria and Yemen”.