Fact Check: Viral post about Devoleena Bhattarjee is false, actor did not have a role in The Kerala Story

New Delhi (Vishvas News): Since the release of the film ‘The Kerala Story’, many fake posts regarding the movie have been doing rounds on the internet. Recently, a post has been going viral on social media platforms with a claim that TV actor Devoleena Bhattacharjee has played a role in the film and now she has married a Muslim man. The image shared in the viral post shows Devoleena standing with a man in Bengali wedding attire.  

Vishvas News in its investigation found that the claim regarding the viral picture is false. Devolina Bhattacharjee is not a part of ‘The Kerala Story’. The person seen in the picture with Devoleena is her old co-star Vishal Singh. Devoleena married in December 2022, while ‘The Kerala Story’ was released on May 5, 2023.

Claim:

Facebook user (archive link) ‘Mohammed Javed Akhtar’ shared the viral picture on May 17, 2023, and wrote in the caption, “Kerala_Story actress Devalina Bhattacharya’s husband Shahnawaz Sheikh dekh lo..jis actress ne film me kaam kya usne film ban ne k baad Married a Muslim because she knows #thekerlastory totally #propganda Or #false film hai.. Srf bhakt hi gaae ke gobar ko halwa samajh ke khaa skte hain”.

Investigation:

To know the truth of the viral post, we started searching on Google with related keywords. We found a report published on December 14, 2022, on the Navbharat Times website. As per the report, Devoleena Bhattacharjee married her gym trainer Shahnawaz Shaikh. There are many photographs of her husband in the report. The Navbharat Times report identified the man as his old co-star Vishal Singh. (Read other reports here.)

To know whether Devoleena Bhattacharjee is a part of ‘The Kerala Story’ or not, we searched it on the movie rating and review website ‘IMDB‘. According to the website, the film was released on May 5, 2023. The star cast list also did not mention Devoleena Bhattacharjee’s name. We searched and saw the trailer of the film on YouTube but could not see Devoleena Bhattacharjee anywhere.

Vishvas News checked Devoleena Bhattacharjee’s social media accounts, but we could not find any post in which she mentioned herself as a part of the film. If she was really a part of this film, she would have definitely attended the promotion of the film or any event. We could not find any such posts on her profile.

However, we did find a tweet related to ‘The Kerala Story’ on Devoleena’s Twitter account. Devoleena replied to a user on May 13, 2023, and wrote, “My husband is a Muslim and went to watch the film with me and has appreciated the film. He neither took it as a crime nor did he feel that it was against his religion. I think every Indian should be like this.”

For more information, we contacted Amit Tuli, who is looking after the public relation of the film ‘The Kerala Story’. He told us that the claim in the viral post is false. Devoleena Bhattacharjee has nothing to do with the film as she is not a part of the film.

In the final phase of the investigation, we scanned the page of the user ‘Mohammed Javed Akhtar’ who shared the viral post with the false claim. We found that the user is influenced by an ideology and over 8,000 people follow the user on Facebook.