After Kashmir Files, Kerala Story: Is The Story Of 32,000 Kerala Girls Converted To Islam And Sent To Syria And Afghanistan As ISIS Fighters True?

Glorification Of ISIS By Some Indian Ulema Has Its Bearing On Common Indian Muslims

Main Points:

1.    Alt News says there is no evidence to prove the claim of the director.

2.    Director Sudipto Sen claims his numbers are based on CM' s statement in the Assembly.

3.    Home Ministry says only 155 pro -IS people are active.

4.    Government says only four Indian women are in jail in Afghanistan.

5.    Experts say they are puzzled the IS has not been able to influence Indian Muslims.

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By New Age Islam Staff Writer

21 November 2022

Last Year, the Kashmir Files had sparked a controversy and had vitiated the communal atmosphere in the country. It had claimed that the film was based on facts. Now another film, Kerala Story is going to cause another round of communal hatred, violence and mudslinging. The film, claimed by the makers as based on true stories, tells the stories of 32,000 Hindu women from the Indian state of Kerala, who have been converted to Islam and then recruited by the ISIS and sent to fight in Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen. They have been killed and buried in the deserts of Syria and Yemen. The film is scheduled for release in 2023 and its teaser has been released this month. The teaser had drawn a viewership og 440000 on just ine week.

In the teaser, a woman who calls herself as Shani Unnikrishnan says in a quivering voice that she wanted to be a nurse but the ISIS coerced her to convert to Islam and then sent her to Afghanistan to fight. Now she was in jail there. She says:

"Now I am Fatima ba, an IS terrorist in a jail in Afghanistan. There are 32,000 girls like her 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 and that too in the open." In a voce choked with emotions, she asks the audience, "Can no one stop this?"

This is really shocking and if it is really a true story, it raises questions on the government, the intelligence agencies and the media that cries hoarse over love jihad but was turning a blind eye to such a big tragedy that was happening "in the open".

The teaser has caused an alert in the social and political circles as 32,000 is a big number. The director claims that he has the proof that 32000 women have been recruited by the ISIS and sent to Syria. However, journalists have raised the question as to how such a big number of women could go missing without the government and the intelligence agencies coming to know about it.

The fact checking website made an investigation into the claim of the makers of the film and came to know that in 2012 the former Chief Minister of Kerala has said in the Assembly that 2800- 3200 young Hindu women from Kerala had converted to Islam since 2006. He had not given an annual number of conversions.

From that figure, the director of the film calculated the number of conversions in ten years --- 32,000.

However, the CM had not said whether the conversions were forced or that they had joined the ISIS. A police official of Kerala had said that 10-15Hindu women converted and joined the IS since 2016.

Akash Banerji, a journalist who runs his own YouTube channel says that the US government has given the figure of Indian origin IS fighters s only 66 and a think tank Observer Research Foundation, puts ISIS sympathisers in India at 180-200. The Indian Home Ministry has put the figure of active ISIS members from India at only 155.

On the basis of these hard facts, independent journalists have rejected the claim of Sudipto Sen as falsehood. Journalist B. R. Arvindakshan has written a letter to film certification board asking it to ban the film. He wrote:

"This film is against the unity and sovereignty of India and tarnishes the credibility of all intelligence agencies."

Akash Banerji says:

"The film is intended to be controversial and targeted for the Indian audience but I hope the audience is smart and mature. The figure of 32,000 makes less sense when you consider the total number of people joining ISIS worldwide is only 40,000, men women both included. The number 32,000 as revealed by Alt News and our research is a very bad joke. It is just to create a sensation and to get the headline."

It is unfortunate that many renowned figures including Tarek Fateh shared the tweets calling the film based on true story giving credibility to the director's claim. On the other hand, the DGP of Kerala has ordered Anil Kant has directed the Thiruvananthapuram Police Commissioner to register an FIR against the director and his team for portraying Kerala as a safe haven for terrorists.

The Wikipedia page of the film also gives the detail of the film from the director 's point of view. It says:

"Promising to be a real, unbiased and true narrative of events that shook Kerala, the teaser is, quite impactful in its approach. The Kerala story has been produced by Vipul Shah and directed by Sudipto Sen backed by four years of extensive and thorough research. Director Sudipto Sen travelled extensively to the state and to the Arab countries, met with the locals and families of the victims and was shocked with the finding."

The same excerpt from Wikipedia was picked up by the Times of India in its report with the headline "The Kerala Story teaser is a heart-breaking tale if forced religious conversions of women" published on November 3, 2022.

This is how unverified stuff is quoted and re-quoted by the media and so-called intellectuals.

All said and done, it is a fact that radical and terrorist organisations are active in the country and have been trying to influence the Muslim men and women to rope them in. Around 200 Muslim men from Indian origin have been working for the ISIS and four women from Kerala are in jail in Afghanistan. This is the result of the glorification of the ISIS by a section of Urdu media and Islamic individuals and organisations during 2014-2015 until India government banned ISIS in February 2015. For 8 months, the ISIS was presented as the flagbearer of the Islamic Caliphate that would end all the problems of the Muslims the worldwide.in reality, it has added to the problems of the Muslims f the world including India. After Al Qaida, ISIS has become another tool for harassment of Muslims and the Ulema and the organisations that glorified ISIS are silent.

URL:   https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/kashmir-files-kerala-story-syria-isis/d/128445

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