Censors demand 127 cuts to Punjab film on police brutality

Satluj vanished from ZEE5’s India platform within about two days of its July 3 release, after the Central Board of Film Certification sought 127 cuts and also pressed the makers to change the title. The film, originally called Punjab ‘95, had been held up since it was submitted for certification in 2022, turning a story about Punjab’s police violence into a larger fight over what can be shown, named and remembered.

The film is built around the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the human rights activist who exposed alleged illegal cremations and extrajudicial killings in Punjab during the militancy era. Amnesty International says Khalra had not been seen since 6 September 1995, when he was arrested by police outside his home. A Patiala court later convicted six Punjab police officials on 18 November 2005 in the abduction and murder case, sentencing two officers to life imprisonment and four others to seven years.

Khalra’s work forced public attention onto one of the most contested chapters in Punjab’s recent history. Human rights reporting tied to his research has cited about 25,000 illegal cremations across the state, with more than 2,000 in Amritsar district alone. That record is why the film has drawn such intense scrutiny: it does not merely dramatize an old case, but returns to evidence of police abuse that many families and activists say was never fully reckoned with.

The short run on streaming deepened the sense that the dispute was not only about one movie release, but about who controls historical memory. Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal criticized the removal as an assault on collective memory, truth and freedom of expression. Comedian Kunal Kamra also questioned why 127 cuts were recommended and whether the CBFC had any jurisdiction over OTT platforms.

For filmmakers and supporters, the sequence around Punjab ‘95 and Satluj has become a stark example of cultural gatekeeping around politically inconvenient history. A film about a bank manager turned rights activist, abducted by police on 6 September 1995 and later vindicated in court after the convictions in Patiala, was not just delayed. It was forced to fight for the right to exist in public at all.