India censors Punjab police brutality film after 127 demanded cuts

India’s censors demanded 127 cuts to Satluj, the film about human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, before the Punjab police brutality drama was pulled from ZEE5 India two days after it finally reached viewers.

Originally titled Punjab 95, the film was submitted to the Central Board of Film Certification in December 2022 and remained stalled through repeated disputes over its content. Honey Trehan’s project, starring Diljit Dosanjh as Khalra, was later retitled Satluj. It was even chosen for the Gala Presentations section of the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023, but the screening was withdrawn before it could take place because the certification fight had not been resolved.

He investigated alleged illegal cremations, disappearances and fake encounters during Punjab’s militancy era, a period that still shapes political life in the state.

Satluj was finally released on ZEE5 on July 3, 2026, and then removed from ZEE5 India two days later. Diljit Dosanjh called the takedown unsurprising and drew a direct line between the film’s treatment and Khalra’s own disappearance and killing. Sukhbir Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal condemned the removal as an assault on collective memory and said Punjab deserved an honest reckoning with its past.

The Supreme Court upheld life sentences for Punjab police officers convicted in his abduction and murder, and nearly 135 police officers, mostly lower-rank personnel, have been sentenced so far in cases tied to the justice campaign his work helped trigger.