From 32,000 To 3 ISIS Joinees, “The Kerala Story” Changes Tack For Promos

New Delhi:

The descriptor of the trailer of “The Kerala Story” — which earlier claimed 32,000 women from Kerala had joined the terror group ISIS — has been changed on YouTube. The movie tells the “true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala,” it now says.

Changes were made after movie producers faced criticism for wrongly projecting facts.

NDTV also accessed government data which clearly spells out the difference between reel versus the real ISIS story as far as India is concerned.

Agencies which collate data for the Union Home Ministry claim that since 2014, 62 young people from India have been identified who joined ISIS. The data also says 68 Indians settled abroad have links with ISIS. “Of these 130, almost 95 per cent belong to south India,” a senior ministry official said.

Due to continuous monitoring and pursuing of relevant cases, 274 people have been arrested having links with ISIS or its affiliates by Indian security agencies.

Government sources, however, conceded that this data is only for cases where the recruit or his or her family has been contacted by government agencies. There may be others regarding whom data is not available, they said.

“The challenge is that radicalisation is now happening very easily as all the material is available on the internet. There are cases which we manage to track but don’t take legal action also. Instead, we try to counsel those who are being brainwashed. Many times we let off people after giving them adequate warning,” said an operative who deals with such cases.

In cases where arrests have taken place, probe revealed that ISIS had recruited the person online and enrolled them for radicalisation and terror training on the Dark Web Academy set up by the group.

“ISIS identified youngsters by contacting them online through social media platforms. In some cases, to de-radicalise these hardliners, we also took help of psychologists,” he adds.

Many states also engage scholars, maulvis and NGOs to spread awareness. “Our rehabilitation programmes are designed to channelise energy of youngsters in sports and other constructive activities,” said a senior officer from Jammu and Kashmir.

“The Kerala story” revolves around love jihad — a concept rejected by various courts, investigating agencies and even the government.

“The term ‘Love Jihad’ is not defined under existing laws. No such case of ‘Love Jihad’ has been reported by any of the central agencies,” the Union Home Ministry informed parliament in 2020.