A court has stayed the release of Aashiq Abu directed movie Virus based on a petition alleging plagiarism. Ernakulam Sessions Court on Thursday stayed the release on a plea filed by director Uday Ananthan alleging that his story was plagiarised for the movie, which is based on the Nipah outbreak.

However, a person working in the movie told TNM that the claim of a script being stolen is laughable as the movie was based on real-life events and written after elaborate conversations with doctors, patients, government officials and others. Aashiq Abu was unavailable for comment. 

The director had earlier told TNM that the film deals with real-life stories, the stories that came with the epidemic. "We also heard many stories behind the virus, heroic stories; more heroic than the ones you see in the cinema," he said. 

The shooting began in December last year and the film is slated for a summer release in 2019. Kozhikode, the district where the disease broke out and claimed 17 lives, was the location of the movie. The shooting began in December last year and was wrapped up recently. 

Virus has a grand cast including Revathy, Soubin Shahir, Dileesh Pothan, Chemban Vinod, Asif Ali, Rima Kallingal, Tovino Thomas, Parvathy Thiruvoth, Kalidas Jayaram and Remya Nambeesan. 

Rima Kallingal will play Lini, the nurse who died of the virus after serving at the hospital where the first of the infected people were admitted. Revathy will play the Kerala State Health Minister, KK Shailaja, while Tovino will enact the role of the then Kozhikode District Collector, UV Jose.

The scriptwriters of the film are Muhsin Parari, Sharfu and Suhas. Muhsin Parari directed the film KL-10 Patthu and Sharfu and Suhas wrote the script for Amal Neerad's film Varathan. They learned of the experiences of the affected people, spoke to doctors and officials to write the script.