Hindu sentiments outraged as Indian politician demeans movie portraying religiously driven hate crimes against Hindu women in interfaith relationships
Kerala, India 
18 February, 2026
Case Summary
Anti-Hindu remarks were made by the Kerala Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The accused targeted and demeaned the movie named "The Kerala Story 2". The movie portrays the sufferings of Hindu female victims of religiously motivated hate crimes in interfaith relationships with Muslim men, often for sexual exploitation and religious conversion. The Chief Minister stated on 19 February 2026 on his Twitter (X) account, “The reports regarding the release of a sequel to the hate-mongering film ‘The Kerala Story’ should be seen with utmost gravity. Having already seen through the communal agenda and blatant lies of the first part, Kerala will once again reject this attempt to demonise our secular fabric with contempt. It is shocking how fabricated narratives aimed at inciting communal discord receive a free pass, while critical expressions of art get gagged. We must stand united against these attempts to paint our land of harmony as a hub of terror. The truth shall always prevail.” The Kerala Chief Minister had also made such demeaning comments when "The Kerala Story" part 1 was released earlier as well. He had called the film, based on "Love Jihad" and forced conversions, communal and propaganda of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party. The film "The Kerala Story" revolved around several women from the southern state, including Nimisha Fathima. The girls were drawn into the clutches of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after coerced Islamic conversions and eloping with their Muslim partners. Notably, "The Kerala Story 2" was a sequel to "The Kerala Story", which documented the mass conversion, brainwashing, and harassment suffered by Hindu women victims at the hands of Muslim perpetrators and recruitment by the Islamic State. The film's first part went on to win two honours at the 71st National Film Awards, including Best Director for Sudipto Sen and Best Cinematography for Prasantanu Mohapatra. It was directed by Sudipto Sen and produced by Vipul Amrutlal Shah under the Sunshine Pictures banner, and the second part was scheduled for theatrical release on 27 February 2026. According to the makers, the sequel presented three parallel narratives involving Hindu women who faced coercion and religious conversion after relationships with Muslim men. The storylines spanned Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Kerala. Following the post by Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajeev Chandrasekhar accused Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of hypocrisy and political diversion after he described the upcoming Hindi film "The Kerala Story 2" as a “hate-mongering” project aimed at inciting communal discord. Speaking to the media, Rajeev stated that the Chief Minister reacted selectively to freedom of expression. “When a movie came out that was against the Bharatiya Janata Party, we did not protest. He quoted freedom of expression. How is it that when somebody else makes a movie against his political thinking, it suddenly becomes a problem?” he asked. Notably, the team at Hinduphobia Tracker had recorded a plethora of cases of religiously motivated crimes against Hindu women in relationships with Muslim men. Between the year 2023 and February 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker documented more than 1000 cases of crimes against Hindu women in interfaith relationships with Muslim men, where in the majority of cases, they were deceived, targeted, sexually exploited, and forcibly converted to Islam by Muslim men, all due to hatred for the victims' Hindu identity. For instance, in Mumbai, Maharashtra, news emerged in 2025 that a Hindu woman was lured and deceived into marriage and pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Mohammad Yusuf, who posed as a Hindu. He also circumcised her minor son without consent. She was forced to cook meat. The accused trapped her into a relationship by pretending to be a Hindu man named Romi and eventually married her. After the marriage, the victim discovered that the accused’s real name was Yusuf and that he was a Muslim who had concealed his identity. Despite the deception, she decided to continue the marriage and, in 2011, they had a son. However, Yusuf secretly had the child circumcised without her consent, stating that he intended to raise him according to Islamic tradition. In another case, in West Bengal in 2017, a minor Hindu girl was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man named Aamir Sohail, an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant who lived in India while posing as a Hindu. Sohail established a relationship with the minor Hindu girl and later eloped with her to the Dinhata area of Cooch Behar district. Sohail kept the girl in a secret tent and raped her on multiple occasions. The minor girl overheard Sohail making phone calls at various locations, indicating his intent to sell her. He was charged under POCSO. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. In yet another case from Ankleshwar, Gujarat, in 2025, a Hindu woman was lured, raped and pressured to convert to Islam by a Muslim man named Azwad (Ajwad) Ahmed Bemat, aged 52. According to reports, the victim came into contact with the accused, who was a Maulvi at a madrasa, through a mutual acquaintance. Subsequently, the accused persistently contacted her, repeatedly calling and messaging her while luring her with the promise of marriage. On 9 November 2025, he invited the victim to his residence inside the madrasa premises, where he made her drink scented water, which rendered her unconscious. Taking advantage of the situation, he raped her twice. When she regained consciousness, the cleric dropped all pretence and immediately pressured her to convert to Islam. He also threatened to defame her and kill her children if she refused to comply. In another case from Bhilwara, Rajasthan, in 2026, a Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship and sexually exploited under false promises of marriage by a Muslim man, a sorcerer by profession. Following this, she was also pressured to convert to Islam by the accused. The accused was identified as Jannisar alias Sonu. In the complaint, the victim stated that the accused established contact with her a few months earlier. Thereafter, he lured her with promises of marriage and sexually exploited her. She further stated that Jannisar pressured her to convert to Islam to marry him and harassed her when she refused.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is - Hate Speech against Hindus. The subcategory selected is- Anti-Hindu subversion and prejudice. Hate speech is defined as any speech, gesture, conduct, writing, or display that is prejudicial against a specific individual and/or group of people, which leads to or may lead to violence, prejudicial action or hate against that individual and/or group. Media plays a specific and overarching role in perpetuating prejudicial attitudes towards a community owing to unfair, untrue coverage and/or misrepresentation/misinterpretation, selective coverage and/or omission of facts of/about issues affecting a specific religious group. This type of bias can dehumanise the victim group, making it easier for others to justify harmful actions against them, which aligns with the objectives of hate speech laws aimed at preventing such harm. It is often observed that the media takes a prejudicial stand against the Hindu community, driven by their need to shield the aggressor community, which happens to be a numeric minority; however, that is the one perpetrating violence against Hindus. For example, the media is often quick to contextualise religiously motivated crimes against Hindus, omit or misrepresent facts that point towards religiously motivated hate crimes, justify and/or downplay religiously motivated hate crimes, or simply present fake news to stereotype Hindus. Such media bias leads to the denial of persecution and is often used to dehumanise Hindus, leading to justification for violence against them. For example, the media covered several fake allegations of Hindus targeting Muslims and forcing them to chant Jai Shree Ram. Most of these cases were proved false and fabricated after police investigation. These fake news reports were subsequently never retracted or clarified. Such fake news led to the justification of violence and dehumanisation of Hindus based on the argument that since Hindus targeted Muslims and forced them to chant Jai Shree Ram, the dehumanisation of Hindus and violence against them was par for the course and merely a retaliation. Such media bias leads to prejudicial portrayals of Hindus and offers a justification for violence against them and, therefore, is considered hate speech under this category. The other sub-category selected is- Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution. Denial or mocking of genocide/large-scale persecution/ethnic cleansing refers to the act of denying or minimising the fact of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. This often involves denying the scale, mechanisms, religious intent, or even the occurrence of the ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus. Hate speech of this kind involves the dissemination of falsehoods that deny or distort established historical facts or mock the suffering of Hindus by saying that they deserved the persecution, motivated by Hinduphobia. Denying such atrocities is not only about the denial of facts or rewriting/revising history, but it also delegitimises the religiously motivated persecution of Hindus, the religious hate/motivation/animosity that led to the persecution, and dehumanises Hindus as a religious group. Such denial of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide and/or religious persecution of Hindus not only denies the suffering but also paves the way for future/present atrocities and hate speech, inciting prejudice and violence against Hindus. It also justifies violence by delinking religious animosity from religiously motivated crimes committed against Hindus. Since such denial and/or mocking of genocide/ethnic cleansing/atrocities motivated by religious animosity leads to present and future ramifications of creating more hate speech, violence, dehumanisation and delegitimisation, it would be considered hate speech under this category. This case stood as a clear instance of religiously motivated hate speech through anti-Hindu subversion, as Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan callously dismissed the harrowing reality of hate crimes against Hindu women in interfaith relationships, where Muslim men lured them with deception, sexually exploited them, and forced conversions to Islam, precisely as "The Kerala Story 2" portrayed. By branding this evidence-based film as "hate-mongering" driven by a "communal agenda and blatant lies", he twisted the truth to protect the Muslim perpetrators and vilify those amplifying Hindu victims' voices, subverting their suffering into a supposed threat to Kerala's secular harmony. His rhetoric erased the documented patterns, from over a thousand Hinduphobia Tracker cases between 2023 and February 2026, of Hindu women enduring targeted grooming, assault, and religious erasure, prioritising a false narrative of unity over the raw pain of Hindu victims and their families shattered by religious predation. This insidious inversion humanised the Muslim aggressors while mocking Hindu victims and their resilience, exposing his prejudice as a deliberate tool to undermine Hinduism's legitimacy and embolden those who prey on its daughters. Denying these atrocities amounted to a profound hate crime in itself, as Vijayan's refusal to acknowledge Hindu women's torment revealed a chilling lack of empathy, stripping them of agency and pretending their blood-soaked testimonies never happened. When he accused the film of inciting discord while ignoring how interfaith traps weaponised love against the Hindu faith, he effectively endorsed the very religious animosity that profiled these women for humiliation and conversion. This calculated blindness deepened their isolation, signalling to perpetrators that Hindu suffering merited contempt rather than outrage, and inflicted fresh wounds on the Hindu community already reeling from relentless targeting. By subverting reality to shield Muslim aggressors and demean Hindu pain, his words pulsed with animosity, transforming public denial into an active assault on the Hindu spirit that no secular platitude could mask. His prejudice was seen earlier, even brighter through prior denial, as Vijayan had similarly trashed "The Kerala Story" Part 1 upon release, dismissing its National Film Award-winning depiction of "Love Jihad", forced conversions, and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria radicalisation as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party lies despite real survivors like Nimisha Fathima validating its truth. This repeated pattern was no slip but an ingrained habit, where he consistently buried evidence of Hindu women brainwashed for conversions and eloped into terror networks, always framing their exploitation as fabricated propaganda threatening his political worldview. Such persistence laid bare a festering religious animosity, always erupting to silence Hindu voices and perpetuate the cycle of unpunished crimes against them. Since this case met the parameters of religiously motivated hate speech, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
State and Establishment
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
