On Tuesday, May 16, OpIndia met with some victims from Kerala who had fallen victim to the systematised crime of indoctrination in the name of Islam, which has been going on in various parts of the country with the help of various Islamic organisations.

In our first report, we detailed parts of our conversation with Shruti, a Brahmin and native of Kasargod in Kerala where she explained how this cartel follows a pre-planned step-by-step process to bring vulnerable and ignorant people into the folds of Islam. Sharing her own life experience, Shruti told OpIndia that she was radicalised to the extent that she wouldn’t shy away from killing a person who objected to the ideology and did not convert to Islam.

As the discussion progressed, Shruti explained how this cartel brainwashes its prey to not only hate one’s own religion but completely surrender themselves to Islam. Shruti said that they trick you into believing that their lifestyle and attire are the only acceptable forms for any woman to adopt.

“They said not wearing a burqa is like prostitution,” Shruti recalled being told by the maulanas, her Muslim friends and colleagues, which completely convinced her to wear a burqa she said.

“Whenever I spoke to the Maulanas, my Muslim friends, or associates, they all told me that if I wanted my Namaz and Roza to be valid, I needed to legally convert to Islam. They told me to start acting like an actual Muslim woman. They spun various stories about the significance of a burqa in order to persuade me to wear one. They said stuff like- when men see your bare skin, that’s prostitution. You will end up in prostitution without even realising it,” Shruti explained, revealing how this cartel cleverly manipulates you to mindlessly follow its ideals and practises.

Another victim Vishali Shetty also shared her experience of conversion. She said, “My radicalisation and my brainwashing into Islam happened in my workplace. I was working in an IT company in Bengaluru. I started in Kerala and then went to Bengaluru. This is when my radicalisation into Islam started. My colleagues approached me. They started asking me questions about my Dharma which initially I tried to defend with common sense and logic but later I did not have answers to their questions. So at that time, there started creating confusion in my mind. They could sense that void and they started feeding me with Islamic ideologies by presenting their ideologies in such a way that it appears to be logical and one starts thinking that what they say is right. You start feeling that what Dharma you have been following till now, what culture you followed till now all these years in your life is totally wrong. So that is how it happened to me,” she said.

Vishali, however, said that was not radicalised to the extent that she started following Islamic practices like wearing a burqa and offering Namaz. She said she realised soon that she was being trapped. “I was able to come in contact with the Arsh Vidya Samajam from where we were able to understand the fallacies of the radicalisation and come back to the Sanatana Dharma once again,” Vishali asserted.

In our previous report, we detailed parts of the interview where Shruti went on to describe how they question their targets’ religious practices, and when they see the target has no idea how to respond, they begin condemning their faith even more passionately and dangerously, creating a sense of inferiority complex in the individual. Shruti mentioned that they put you in a position where you develop such an aversion to your faith that you don’t even want to consider or talk about it.

When the victim reaches this level, they paint such an appealing portrayal of their ideas, culture, and religion that the person gets completely riveted. As the victim reaches an addiction stage, they begin injecting their ideological views into your system like slow poison, Shruti described the systematic and methodical method that these cartels operating in various parts of the country, particularly in South India, employ to carry out this organized crime.

This organized process of indoctrination in the name of Islam, which Shruti spoke about, is a raging issue that has been very well depicted in Sudipto Sen’s The Kerala Story which has been breaking all box office records since it hit the theatres on May 5, 2023. The movie tells the story of ‘ISIS brides’ from Kerala, women from the state who had joined ISIS and married ISIS terrorists in Syria, including Hindu and Christian women who had converted to Islam.

Though the movie is based on true incidents, since the release of its trailer, opposition particularly the left and the Congress, and Islamist groups, have been attempting to delegitimize the movie.

They went on to label it as propaganda cinema and tried to prevent its screening. Despite the criticism, however, the movie has inspired people to promote ‘The Kerala Story’ among Hindu women on their own. It has also made people realize how they didn’t recognize the efforts to influence them earlier.

OpIndia reported on Anagha Jaigopal and Vishali Shetty, two such women who narrated their experiences of conversion and coming back to the Sanatana Dharma. They described in detail their experience and testified that the film depicts the reality of what is happening in not just Kerala or other states in the country but across the globe.

OpIndia also wrote about one such Hindu woman who, after seeing the movie, shared her own life experience with the media. The woman said that indoctrination in the name of Islam documented in the movie is not a figment of anyone’s imagination but a real problem raging across not only India but the world. She confessed how she herself had fallen prey to this trap when she was in college.