Kerala BJP vice president KS Radhakrishnan said the registration of an FIR against the teaser of the movie 'Kerala Story' was an idiotic move, adding that this is a selective application of the law with a vengeance in order to appease a particular group of people in the state.
Radhakrishnan toldthat "such a fantastic order issued by the DGP is based on a complaint forwarded by his boss, the Chief Minister, who is in charge of the home portfolio of the state. The main complaint is that the teaser contains misinformation. The misinformation is of course wrong in a news item. Whether any aesthetic content of a film or a work of art contains misinformation or not is the basic question. If it is a history text or an official document, misinformation is absolutely wrong. But if it is an aesthetic text, the particular piece of information can be accepted and rejected based on the aesthetic necessity of that work of art".
Commenting on the controversy that has arisen, the BJP leader said, "The question that arises is whether the film is a work of art or a historical document. If you think it is a work of art, then freedom should be given to the artist to express his experience in an aesthetic manner."
Speaking of the rights granted to the artists by the Indian Constitution, the leader said, "We have given the freedom to the artist to express his experience without hurting the sentiments of the other, that is the maximum you can say." Quoting Article 19 (1) of the Indian Constitution, the leader further states that the article "has often been interpreted in terms of the right of the artist to express his or her experience or opinion. So nobody is concerned about the factual certainty of a work of art".
About the controversy surrounding the movie, the BJP leader commented, "Nobody has seen the film. The film has not yet been screened. Only the teaser has come out".
He further alleged that the dispute is not about the incident, but rather on the basis of a number of persons. To prove his point, the BJP leader said, "It has been historically and legally proven that Kerala girls have been deported to Syria and they have been recruited to IS and they have been used as shields. This fact can't be questioned or denied."
The controversy came up after the release of the trailer of the movie 'The Kerala Story', which allegedly showed Kerala as a safe haven for ISIS terrorist organizations based out of Syria and Afghanistan. The movie showed that as many as 32,000 girls from the state have joined terrorist organizations over the years. Speaking of the number controversy, the BJP leader said, "So, the question is only about the number: whether it is 32,000 or not."
Calling the movie factual and slamming the Kerala police, he stated, "There are cases of women who have been deported to Syria and have been recruited to IS. These are the facts. So the action of the DGP to file an FIR against the teaser is absolutely 'idiotic'. We cannot say anything more than that."
He suggested a judicial inquiry to find the number of women. "I would suggest the DGP and the Chief Minister order a judicial inquiry regarding the number of women who have been deported from Kerala to Syria and recruited to IS to ascertain the exact number. Without ascertaining the exact number, in what authority the DGP has issued a notice to his subordinates to register a case? If this is permitted, nobody can make a film."
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor