Vipul Shah defends The Kerala Story’s ‘32,000 women converted’ claim: ‘Topic is not completely over’ | Exclusive

The Kerala Story, directed by Sudipto Sen, has seen countless controversiesever since its first teaser was released last year. The film has managed to register success at the box office but its path to that place has been full of court cases, boycott calls, and bans. At the root of it all is a line from the teaser and trailer, where the makers stated the film tells the true story of women being forcibly converted by ISIS and claimed that 32,000 women faced this fate in the last few years.

In the absence of corroborating evidence for that, many called the claim out. Eventually, on the Supreme Court’s direction, the makers had to remove it prior to the release, along with adding a disclaimer. In an exclusive chat with DNA, the film’s creative producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah addressed the controversy and maintained that even though the line is not part of the film now, the ‘topic is not completely over’.

When asked if the line was misleading or the figure contained any sort of misinformation, Shah replied, “The thing is that the case is not yet concluded. The hearing was only about the ban. In that hearing, there was this argument about that this 32,000 number and the court decided to hear that matter on a later date. It’s listed on July 18. In the meanwhile, they wanted to end this controversy. So, they told us to add this disclaimer. We have always abided by whatever the courts have said and we did the same. There is no problem. But this topic is not completely over. We will address it, don’t worry!”

Starring Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Siddhi Idnani, and Sonia Balani, The Kerala Story is running in theatres, having grossed over Rs 200 crore already. It is th highest-grossing female-led film in India ever and the second-highest-grossing Bollywood film of the year.