Teaser of 'The Kerala Story' Shared as 'Woman Narrating Story of Joining ISIS'

The original video was shared on Twitter by the actor and the production house.

The claim suggests that the video shows a woman from Kerala, who was converted to Islam and later became a terrorist.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A clip from a film teaser showing a burqa-clad woman talking about how she was converted to Islam and is now a terrorist jailed in Afghanistan is going viral on social media platforms to claim that she is from Kerala and is narrating her ordeal.

What is the video about?: In the video, the woman can be heard saying, "My name was Shalini Unnikrishnan. I wanted to become a nurse to serve humanity. Today, I am Fatima Ba, an ISIS terrorist jailed in Afghanistan." She adds that she is not alone, and there are around 32,000 girls who were converted to Islam and sent to Syria and Yemen.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)

But the fact is: The video is from a teaser of an upcoming film called 'The Kerala Story', which claims to unearth the story of '32,000 women, who were converted to Islam and sent to Syria and Yemen.'

• The teaser is available on the official YouTube channel of Sunshine Pictures, which is a venture founded by the producer of the film Vipul Amrutlal Shah.

• It was also shared on Twitter by Adah Sharma, the actor seen in the video.

How did we find out the truth?: At first we noticed 'The Kerala Story' written towards the end of the video.

Towards the end of the video, a sign that says 'The Kerala Story' can be seen written.

(Source: Viral video/Twitter/Screenshot)

• Using this as a cue, we searched for the video on YouTube and came across a film teaser uploaded on a verified channel, Sunshine Pictures.

• The video was uploaded on 3 November and was titled, "The Kerala Story Teaser | Vipul Amrutlal Shah | Sudipto Sen | Adah Sharma | Aashin A Shah".

• The person seen talking in the video is actor Adah Sharma, who has also shared the video on her official Twitter handle.

• She mentioned that the film will show the "heart-breaking and gut-wrenching stories of 3200 females in Kerala."

• The actor has also tagged the director Sudipto Sen and Vipul Amrutlal Shah, the film's producer.

Conclusion: A video from a film teaser called 'The Kerala Story' is being shared out of context on the internet.

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