After years of certification challenges, Punjab 95 — an Indian film about the historical mass murder of Sikhs by the Punjab Police — was, last week, finally released as
Satluj (2026) on ZEE5 — an Indian subscription streaming platform.
The film, starring global megastar Diljit Dosanjh, premiered in India, only to be removed within 48 hours of its release. It was initially scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, back in 2023, but was withdrawn, because of protracted certification obstacles. The Central Board of Film Certification sought 127 cuts, making director, Honey Trehan, question what would then remain of his film.
ZEE5 secured streaming rights, following unresolved certification issues for cinema release. Last week, the government cited “security concerns” and “obligations” under IT Rules 2021, ordering ZEE5 to take down the film. (It was later removed from ZEE5’s international library too.) Why was a film, which has faced more hurdles than a veteran Olympian, withdrawn so quickly?
Satluj is inspired by the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who exposed thousands of disappearances, extrajudicial killings and secret cremations of Sikhs carried out by the Punjab Police during the state’s years of militancy. Is this an inconvenient truth for Indian authorities? One of the vague reasons cited for censoring Satluj, includes, “it could be used by anti-India forces”. Meanwhile, India’s ministry of information and broadcasting put together a high-level interdepartmental committee, doubling down on the ban. Indeed, the debacle is a chilling development for international freedom of expression. In a free, democratic society, movies should be judged by critics, not censored by the state.
Khalra, played by Dosanjh, investigated disappearances and extrajudicial killings from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s. Following the Indian army’s storming of the Golden Temple in 1984 and the anti-Sikh pogroms, following Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Punjab was convulsed by an insurgency, driven by outrage at the anti-Sikh massacres. Linked to an aspirational sovereign Sikh homeland — Khalistan — it was one of the bloodiest chapters in India’s post-Partition history. Khalistani militants assassinated political leaders, conducted bombings and were also responsible for killing innocent civilians — both Hindu and Sikh. Meanwhile, human rights groups accused Indian authorities of widespread abuse.
Khalra documented more than 2,000 secret cremations in Amritsar alone. Later investigations by human rights groups confirmed secret cremations had indeed occurred across Punjab (cremation being one of several methods used to dispose of victims’ bodies). After revealing his findings, in September 1995, Khalra was abducted by Punjab police and “disappeared”. India’s Supreme court, who ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate Khalra’s abduction and allegations of mass cremations, said the CBI’s findings highlighted a “flagrant violation of human rights on a mass scale”. The police officers behind Khalra’s abduction and murder were eventually brought to justice. In 2012, India’s National Human Rights Commission announced compensation to the families of victims in the “The Punjab mass cremation case”.
The hypocrisy of India’s censorship of Satluj is clear. Films such as the Bollywood high octane spy-drama — Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar The Revenge (2026), infused with a generous dose of Indian nationalism, or The Kashmir files (2022) based on the 1990s exodus of Kashmiri pandits from the Kashmir valley — forced by jihadists — faced no equivalent interference. In fact Prime Minister, Modi, praised the latter saying: “everyone must watch [the] film, some tried to hide the truth for years”. Moreover, several BJP led states offered the film tax exemptions, some even allowing government employees leave to watch it. Indeed, the world must know about the campaign of terror against the Kashmiri pandits, especially given Kashmir, is often raised by British Pakistani heritage MPs in the UK parliament. But a film about a Sikh, who fearlessly exposed mass extrajudicial killings of his co-religionists, is absurdly considered a security threat. Why the double standard and hierarchy of victimhood? Perhaps, only truths which align with official narratives, are permitted?
The same year Khalra was murdered, he gave a moving speech in Canada. He told his audience that the mothers of children who’d gone missing, urged him: “at least find out, is he even alive or not.” Last year, a primary school in Fresno, California, was named in his honour. Indeed, Khalra was a man driven by his conscience, despite knowing the risk to his own life. Famous Bollywood film directors have pushed back against India’s censorship. Ram Gopal Varma, posted on X: “Just saw SATLUJ and it is not a film, but a deep wound that will never heal. It stirs up the sludge in one of the darkest chapters of our [Indian] history.” He went on to say that Diljit Dosanjh’s “only weapons are a ledger and a conscience”. Meanwhile, prominent filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, wrote: “The thing about banning something is that the more you ban something, the more people want to watch it. I was not even planning to watch this film but now I will have to watch to understand why it got banned.
India’s selective censorship of the creative arts demonstrates the fragility of global freedom of expression
Kashyap is, of course, right that since the ban, copies of the film are circulating online and gurdwaras in Punjab and across the Sikh diaspora, including here in the UK are hosting public screenings, in defiance. The streaming network ZEE5 is still backing the movie too. They posted on X: “We remain committed to exploring every possible avenue to bring Satluj back to you.” A Public Interest Litigation has since been filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, looking to restore the film on ZEE5. The banning of the film in India, has ironically generated a great deal of free publicity for the filmmakers, far beyond India’s borders. The BBC, Bloomberg and The New York Times are amongst those who have covered the fallout. India’s selective censorship of the creative arts demonstrates the fragility of global freedom of expression. Given the position the country currently holds in the World Press Freedom Index — 157th out of 180 countries — perhaps this should all come as little surprise.
The final word should go to Dosanjh. Last week, he spoke to fans via videochat: “The story has been delivered, and today Jaswant Singh Khalra is being talked about in every home”.
