Punjab 95 – a film based on the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the Punjabi human rights activist killed in illegal police custody in 1995 – finally reached audiences on July 3, when it was released on the OTT platform ZEE5 under the title Satluj. It had taken four years to get there. Two days later, it was withdrawn from India “until further orders”, and then internationally. Since then, the debate around the film has only grown louder, in Punjab and beyond.
Directed by Honey Trehan, the film stars Diljit Dosanjh, Arjun Rampal, Kanwaljit Singh, Suvinder Vicky, Jagjit Sandhu and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan. It had been waiting for Censor Board clearance since 2022. Its original title was Ghallughara – a Punjabi word meaning massacre or genocide. The Board objected, and the title became Punjab 95. The Board then proposed 127 cuts. At the time, Trehan had said: “The film is a biopic of Jaswant Singh Khalra, and we were asked to remove his name entirely. That is, quite simply, a crime.”
