NEW DELHI — The abrupt removal of a film starring popular Indian singer-actor Diljit Dosanjh from a streaming platform has triggered a political row in India’s Punjab state.
“Satluj” was taken off ZEE5 days after it came out after protracted four-year battle with the film certification body. As the film’s writer Niren Bhatt says someone within the establishment has a “massive problem” with it, the government claims it can be “weaponized against India”
Political parties and Sikh bodies in Punjab on Monday slammed the removal of the film from the OTT platform, saying the movie compels India to confront one of the state’s “darkest chapters” and that history must be confronted with honesty, not buried through censorship, the PTI news agency reported.
Criticising the removal of the film from ZEE5 platform, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal said, “This is not mere censorship, it is an assault on our collective memory, truth, and freedom of expression”.
After nearly four years in limbo, Satluj, previously titled Punjab 95, finally reached audiences last Friday when it quietly premiered on ZEE5. However, the relief proved to be short-lived. Within 48 hours of its release, the film disappeared from the streaming platform following directions from the government of India, according to The Indian Express.
Satluj is inspired by the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who investigated allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings during Punjab’s separatist insurgency — and then he himself disappeared.
He was later found to have been abducted and murdered. Several Punjab police officers were eventually convicted for their role in the killing.
Satluj was released on the ZEE5 platform on Friday but removed two days later.
ZEE5 said in a statement the film would be unavailable in India “until further notice” because of “current developments” but did not explain what they were.
With ZEE5 pulling it, the film is no longer officially available in India.
Completed in 2022, the film never made it to cinemas because of a prolonged dispute with India’s film certification board.
Despite its brief availability, Satluj received strong reviews. The Hollywood Reporter described it as “one of the finest Indian films of the year”.
The Indian Express quoted a spokesperson for RSVP Movies, the film’s producer, as saying it was removed on government orders. The government has not publicly commented on the decision.
Dosanjh addressed the removal in a live social media video, saying he had expected the film to be taken down but not so quickly.
“My love and respect to all of you. What I had already expected is exactly what happened. I thought the film might get banned when [government] offices opened on Monday, but I didn’t know it would happen as early as Sunday evening.”
Dosanjh said the uncertainty surrounding the film’s release was why its makers had kept promotions to a minimum. “If we had promoted it, the film would definitely not have been released at all,” he said.
Despite its removal, Dosanjh said he was glad audiences had finally been able to watch the film after years of delays.
Inspired by Khalra’s life, the film follows an activist investigating alleged human rights abuses during Punjab’s separatist insurgency, one of the bloodiest chapters in modern Indian history.
From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, Sikh militants seeking an independent state of Khalistan fought Indian security forces in an insurgency that killed thousands.
As the government intensified its crackdown, human rights groups accused security forces of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The authorities denied the allegations, saying tough measures were needed to end the insurgency, which had largely subsided by the mid-1990s.
Khalra investigated allegations that many victims had been secretly cremated without their families’ knowledge or proper records being kept.
He disappeared in 1995 and was later found to have been abducted and murdered. Several Punjab police officers were later convicted over his abduction and killing.
The film has had an unusually long and difficult journey to release.
It was originally titled Ghallughara, a Punjabi term associated with some of the darkest episodes in Sikh history.
It refers to the mass killings of Sikhs by Mughal forces in 1746 and by the forces of Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1762.
Director Honey Trehan has said India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), the government body that certifies films for public exhibition in cinemas, asked the filmmakers to change the title during the certification process but did not explain its reasons publicly.
The film was later retitled Punjab ’95, a reference to the year Khalra disappeared.
The film was due to premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, but the producers withdrew it while certification issues in India remained unresolved. The festival did not publicly link the withdrawal to the certification dispute.
The dispute centred on a long list of changes sought by the CBFC. Trehan told the news website Scroll in 2025 that the board’s objections initially numbered 21 but eventually grew to 127 proposed cuts.
“Anything that was a reference to reality was to be removed,” he said, arguing that the changes would have fundamentally alter the film.
Trehan told New Lines Magazine last year that after several rounds of review, the CBFC sought changes including a new title, the removal of references to Khalra and edits to scenes depicting police violence.
He said the board also challenged some of the film’s factual claims and warned it could trigger law-and-order problems in Punjab.
The filmmakers challenged the CBFC’s demands in the Bombay High Court but later withdrew their petition, opting to accept the board’s changes in the hope of securing certification, The Hindu newspaper reported. Trehan later said the list of requested cuts and changes kept growing despite efforts to resolve the dispute.
The CBFC has not publicly commented on his account.
These unresolved issues led to the project remaining in limbo for nearly three years.
Last week, however, the makers announced that the film would bypass a theatrical release and instead premiere directly on ZEE5 under a new title, Satluj.
On the day Satluj landed on ZEE5, Trehan said the film had been released “without any cuts or compromises” in the form originally intended by the filmmakers, although they had been unable to retain the title Punjab ’95.
Films released in cinemas in India must be certified by the CBFC under the Cinematograph Act, but those released directly on streaming platforms do not require its approval.
Instead, streaming platforms like ZEE5 are governed by the Information Technology Rules, 2021, which mandate age ratings, a code of ethics and a grievance mechanism, but do not exempt them from takedown orders under Indian law.
After the film’s removal from the streaming platform for Indian audiences, Trehan told The Indian Express newspaper, “I am at a loss right now. I don’t know how to react to this development.”
Meanwhile, ZEE5 has said it stood by the film and the “creative vision behind it” and “hoped to bring it back soon”, without sharing any deadline.
Source: Saudi Gazette