A wing of the Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala has announced that it will screen The Kerala Story, a controversial movie about forced conversion of Hindu girls by Muslim youths, at all parishes starting April 13 as part of an “awareness campaign”.

The Kerala Catholic Youth Movement (KCYM) wing of the Thamarassery Diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church has taken the decision to screen the film at 6.30pm on Tuesday, close on the heels of the outburst against the Idukki Diocese for showing the movie.

Richard John, president of the KCYM Thamarassery Diocese, told The Telegraph on Tuesday that the movie would be shown at all its 120 units attached to as many parishes of the diocese in north Kerala. His argument was that The Kerala Story was not a banned movie and hence they had every right to screen it.

The Hindi film portrays gullible women, mostly Hindu, being trapped by Muslim youths who convert them on the pretext of marrying them and then trafficking them to join the Islamic State.

Told that it is the timing of the screening that is being questioned since Kerala votes on April 26 and the BJP is desperately trying to open its account in the state, John said
he had nothing to do with politics, let alone being a sympathiser of the party.

“There is absolutely no politics in screening this movie. Otherwise, we would be screening it in public places like the way the DYFI screened the BBC documentary,” John said. CPM youth arm DYFI had screened India: The Modi Question across the state at public places, protesting the Centre pulling it out of online platforms.

“What we are going to do is not a protest, but purely an awareness drive,” John said.

Told that even the film’s makers had backtracked on the number of girls allegedly trafficked, John said all that mattered for the KCYM was to “protect its youths, especially girls”.

The Archdiocese of Thalassery has distanced itself from the decision of its KCYM wing to screen the movie.

Geevarghese Mor Coorilos, former bishop of the Niranam Diocese of the Jacobite
Syrian Church, said: “Dioceses functioning in the name of Jesus Christ should be propagating love stories and not hate stories.”