'Satluj' controversy: Defying Zee5 ban, DSGMC to screen Diljit Dosanjh's film across Delhi schools, colleges

The Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) on Tuesday condemned the removal of Satluj from Zee5, calling the streaming takedown an attempt to suppress the story of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the Punjab human rights activist whose investigations exposed alleged mass cremations by state authorities in the 1990s. The committee announced a programme of public screenings and educational seminars to ensure the film reaches audiences.

“Since this film is a biographical portrayal of Jaswant Singh Khalra, it depicts how a social activist opened people’s eyes to the truth,” DSGMC president Harmeet Singh Kalka said. “He uncovered evidence of 25,000 bodies that had been cremated as ‘unclaimed’ and raised the issue not only within the country but also internationally. Suppressing this story, preventing the events of that dark era from reaching the public, is deeply wrong and has sparked immense outrage across the Sikh community.”

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DSGMC response and plans

Kalka said the committee has instructed Gurdwara committees across Delhi to download and screen the film locally and urged schools and colleges to host seminars on Khalra’s life and work. “We want people to realise the impact a single social activist can have on society. If one individual can achieve so much, there is no reason why we cannot all work together to do the same,” he added. The DSGMC’s action heightens the dispute over the film and shows organised civil-society resistance to what leaders call institutional censorship.

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Film background and controversy

Directed by Honey Trehan and starring Diljit Dosanjh as Jaswant Singh Khalra, Satluj — originally titled Panjab 95 — dramatises Khalra’s transformation from a bank clerk into a rights campaigner who exposed alleged illegal killings and secret cremations during Punjab’s violent late 1980s and early 1990s. Khalra disappeared in 1995. Ten years later four Punjab Police personnel were convicted in connection with his abduction, torture and alleged murder, though his body was never recovered.

The film was embroiled in a prolonged dispute with the Central Board of Film Certification, which reportedly demanded 120 cuts. Satluj was released uncut and retitled on the OTT platform Zee5 last Friday but was removed from the service in India on Sunday. Zee5 cited unspecified “developments” for the takedown. Industry reports suggested the removal was related to alleged violations of the Information Technology Rules.