The West Bengal government on Monday imposed a ban on the screening of the controversial film The Kerala Story a day after the movie was pulled out of theatres in Tamil Nadu but ran smoothly in other states.
Interacting with reporters in Kolkata, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she saw the film as one among several attempts by BJP to humiliate and divide people.
"Why did they make Kashmir Files? To humiliate one section. What is this Kerala files (Kerala Story)? They prepare Kashmir Files to condemn the Kashmiri people... now they are defaming Kerala state. Everyday they are defaming through their narrative," Banerjee said.
A West Bengal official said to avoid any incident of hatred and violence and to maintain peace in the state, the Chief Minister directed an immediate ban on screening of The Kerala Story.
“Action will be taken against any cinema hall that violates the ban," the bureaucrat told PTI.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier praised the film at one of his rallies in Karnataka following which BJP president JP Nadda and Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya asked young females to watch the film. Most theatres in Bangalore witnessed house full screens across the city, over the weekend.
Asked about the West Bengal decision, the film’s producer Vipul Shah said he would take legal action against the ban. "If that's what she has done, then we will take legal action. Whatever is possible under the provisions of the law, we will fight that," Shah said in Mumbai.
Within minutes of Mamata announcing the ban, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur came out publicly in support of the film.
"The Kerala Story exposes the sinister nexus of religious conversions. Every daughter and sister must watch this film to avoid the dangerous conspiracy of global terrorism. Mamta Banerjee should tell if she is standing with those who promote terrorist ideology or is standing against it?" Thakur said.
In Guwahati, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that he, his family members and his cabinet colleagues would watch the movie on May 11.
Directed by Sudipto Sen, the film depicts how women from Kerala were converted to Islam and recruited by Islamic State terrorist group. Even before its release on May 5, there were legal efforts to stop its release and heated debate between the saffron party and opposition leaders.
The film was screened in a few multiplexes in Tamil Nadu for the first two days, but was pulled out of the theatres from May 7.
“More than 10 multiplexes in Chennai and a couple of screens in Coimbatore released the movie. Anticipating trouble, the police provided protection to the theatres. But the presence of police created panic among the audience resulting in less occupancy for other films. Due to this, the multiplexes decided on their own to pull out the movie from screens,” Tiruppur M Subramaniam, president, Tamil Nadu Theatre and Multiplex Owners’ Association, told DH.
In Kerala, the screening is going on smoothly at around 30 theatres. Even those theatres that withdrew the screening on Friday had resumed the show.
In Gujarat multiplexes, the film failed to draw a crowd with barely 35 per cent of occupancies on Sunday. Multiplex Association of Gujarat president Manubhai Patel said Monday witnessed barely 10 per cent of the occupancy, making the movie screening a loss for the multiplex owners.
(With inputs from Mohammed Safi Shamsi, Sumir Karmakar, ETB Sivapriyan, Mrityunjay Bose, Pranati Reddy A S, Satish Jha and Arjun Raghunath)
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