After featuring at 21 international film festivals in 11, Emmy award winning Indian filmmaker Hemal Trivedi’s documentary Among the Believers has earned pride of place. The film is an investigative narration of madarsas in Pakistan which train children in terror.
“The film profiles radical cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazia, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally. He runs the Red Mosque Madarsa Network, a political madarsa network created in the Soviet-Afghan era to train students and recruit them to fight the Soviet Union. His quest to impose the strict version of the Sharia law made Pakistan an unstable society and brought it into a state of civil war,” Hemal Trivedi tells you, adding that the movie brings rare insights into the ideological battles shaping Pakistan.
The film also leads you through the lives of Aziz’s two students. “One, Zarina (12), quits the madarsa to join a regular school in the hope of becoming a doctor. The second, Talha (12), leaves his moderate Muslim family to become a jihadi preacher. We see how their education system shapes young minds,” Trivedi says.
It was the loss of a close friend in the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai that led to the making of this film. “I harboured hatred for Pakistan. I wanted to know where the root of terrorism in Pakistan lay. I started my research by visiting mosques and madarsas in New Jersey from where I hail. I realised Pakistan is a spiritually divided country. I wanted to make a film about the ideological conflict in Pakistan and their education system,” she says.