Kerala has been “gravely insulted” by the film The Kerala Story winning two National Film Awards, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday.

Sudipto Sen was named best director and Prasantanu Mohapatra the best cinematographer for the film.

The award winners for 2023 were announced by the Union information and broadcasting on Friday.

The film, which released in May 2023, claims to depict how women from Kerala were converted to Islam and recruited by the Islamic State terror group. The filmmakers initially claimed that 32,000 women from Kerala had joined the Islamic State, but when asked for evidence, they altered the trailer to state that the movie was a “compilation of the true stories of three young girls”.

On Friday, Vijayan said that by honouring a film that “spreads blatant misinformation with the clear intent of tarnishing Kerala’s image and sowing seeds of communal hatred”, the jury had “lent legitimacy to a narrative rooted in the divisive ideology of the Sangh Parivar”.

The Sangh Parivar was a reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and its affiliate groups.

“Kerala, a land that has always stood as a beacon of harmony and resistance against communal forces, has been gravely insulted by this decision,” Vijayan said on social media.

He added: “It is not just Malayalis, but everyone who believes in democracy, must raise their voice in defence of truth and the constitutional values we hold dear.”

Congress leader KC Venugopal said that The Kerala Story “deserves to be in the dustbin”.

“It peddles a rotten agenda and maligns my beautiful state of Kerala,” said the Alappuzha MP.

The film getting the National Awards is “the most perfect example of how the BJP sponsors and promotes hate from the highest echelons of government”, Venugopal said on social media.

“Kerala will never ever tolerate this insult it has received from the government of its own country,” he said, adding that the people “will punish the BJP so hard that they will not even dream of gaining any acceptance for generations to come”.

Also read: ‘The Kerala Story’ review: All about Islamophobia