The sudden removal of the Punjabi film Satluj from an OTT platform, within 48 hours of its release, has sparked a renewed interest on the life of the human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra and his fight for justice against extrajudicial cremations in the 1990s in Punjab.
Even as Zee5 warned against piracy, singer Diljit Dosanjh, who portrays Khalra in the movie, encouraged people to watch Satluj wherever and however they can. “One day truth always comes out,“ Dosanjh stated. The film, which has been referred by the government to an Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC) constituted under the IT Rules 2021 for a detailed examination, unnerves viewers with its depiction of State violence on youth of Punjab during 1990s. History reminds us why Jaswant Singh Khalra, who fought for a generation scarred by police brutality, remains a revered figure in Punjab even today.
Students of Panjab University watch a special screening of the film ‘Satluj’ at the Gurudwara Shri Mukatsar Sahib PU after permission to organise the screening was denied, in Chandigarh, Punjab on July 8, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
When firewood purchase exposed extrajudicial killings
The Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP) was formed in 1997 to look into the human right violations committed in Punjab during the police operations against Khalistani separatist elements. Their report, Reduced To Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights in Punjab, explains how Jaswant Singh Khalra, the general secretary of the Akali Dal’s human rights wing, unearthed the alleged cases of “secret” cremations of unidentified bodies and extrajudicial killings in Punjab.
Khalra, a law graduate, was working in a bank when he began investigating the disappearances of his colleagues. He then discovered a note from the Amritsar municipal corporation with names of people cremated by the police. He released the findings as a press note and supported the claims with proofs of firewood purchase registers from a crematorium in Amritsar district. He also furnished these records in the writ petition while approaching the Punjab and Haryana High Court demanding an investigation but the court dismissed his petition, saying that the petitioner had no locus standi in the matter.
Undeterred by constant threats and obstruction, Khalra continued his quest for justice for the grieving families. In June 1995, he gave a speech in front of Canadian lawmakers on police excess. Three months later, on September 6, 1995, he was abducted from his Amritsar residence. Khalra’s family moved the Supreme Court, which directed the CBI to probe his abduction and also to take into account the evidence gathered by Khalra on the allegations of cremation of unidentified bodies and extrajudicial killings.
The CBI concluded that Punjab police officers had taken Khalra to a police station in Tarn Taran and was subsequently killed in custody. In its report, apart from identifying nine police officers involved in the abduction and murder of Khalra, it disclosed details on 2,097 illegal cremations in Amritsar district. The Supreme Court directed the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) “to have the matter examined in accordance with the law and determine all the issue which are raised before the commission”.
The Supreme Court remarked in its order, “in case it is found that the facts stated in the Press Note [released by Jaswant Singh Khalra] are correct — even partially — it would be a gory-tale of Human rights violations. It is horrifying to visualise that dead bodies of large number of persons, allegedly thousands, could be cremated by the police unceremoniously with a label “unidentified”.
NHRC reports on human rights violation in Punjab
In its annual reports spanning 1995 to 2000, the National Human Rights Commission published detailed findings from its investigation into extrajudicial killings and disappearances.”
The NHRC formally recorded the abduction in its annual report of the year 1995-96, under the chapter “Human rights in the areas of terrorism and insurgency”. The Commission noted its deep concern over both insurgent violence and State excesses, stating, “the Commission is profoundly grieved when reports are received both of terrorist excesses, and of the excessive use of force by the instrumentalities of State, of unaccounted disappearances or of deaths in circumstances that are suspicious, such as those where allegations are made of “false encounters”
A news article published in The Hindu on June 11, 2003.
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The Hindu Archive
The NHRC’s annual report for the year 1998-99, stated that though the petitioners have asked all cases of “extra-judicial eliminations, or involuntary disappearances, fake encounters, abductions and killings etc.” across Punjab to be investigated, the Central and Punjab governments argued that the inquiry should be restricted to 2,097 cremations in the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, and Majitha.
For the first time in 1999, the Punjab government published list of all the cremations done by the police of “un-claimed/un-identified bodies” in the three districts between June and December in 1994. Following this, 88 claims were received from the families to identify their family members and claim compensation.
The process expanded significantly in 2004. That year, the NHRC published a public notice in The Tribune featuring an updated registry compiled by the CBI, urging more next of kin to come forward, identify the deceased, and file claims.
The CBI had submitted details identifying 582 bodies, partially identifying 278, and leaving 1,237 entirely unidentified.
A list published by CBI of deceased persons in 2004.
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Committee for Coordination on Disappearances in Punjab (CCDP)
The process of raising claims were not easy for the affected families. In August, 2004 The Hindu reported that the process of raising the claim as required by the NHRC was difficult as many witnesses who could have provide details had already died and in other cases either relatives didnt have proper documents or narrative on the incidents grew inconsistent.
Harshinder Singh, a Chandigarh-based advocate, said that during the period of terrorism, due to the backwardness of these people, the security forces took them granted to inflict excesses. It was an uphill task for families of the victims to come out to stake their claims as memories return withmore apprehensions regarding the repeat of the dark days, when security forces tormented them, he added.
Supreme Court on the abduction and subsequent murder of Jaswant Singh Khalra
On November 18, 2005, an Additional Sessions court convicted six police officers in the Khalra abduction and murder case. The court awarded life imprisonment with fines to Deputy Superintendent of Police Jaspal Singh and ASI Amarjit Singh, and seven years prison to Prithipal Singh, Satnam Singh, Surinderpal Singh, Jasbir Singh and Amarjit Singh. Later, the Punjab and Haryana High Court acquitted Amarjit Singh and sentenced the other four policemen to life imprisonment, which was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.
An August 2011 news article published in The Hindu.
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The Hindu Archive
While dismissing the appeals filed by convicted policemen, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan said: “When the matter comes to the court, it has to balance the protection of fundamental rights of an individual and duties of the police. It cannot be gainsaid that freedom of an individual must yield to the security of the State. The State must protect victims of torture, ill treatment as well as the human rights defender fighting for the interest of the victims, giving the issue serious consideration for the reason that victims of torture suffer enormous consequences psychologically.”
Forgotten justice
Although the media and judiciary had nearly let the issue be forgotten, in 2017 in a report titled ‘Identifying the Unidentified’, the Punjab Documentation and Advocacy Project (PDAP) claimed to have collated details of “systematic killings by the Punjab police and security services” from 1980s to mid-1990s.
“Our preliminary findings have shown that more than 95% of these reported encounter killings were fake…meaning that these were extra-judicial executions,” the PDAP told The Hindu.
The report claimed that 5,648 mass cremations of unclaimed and unidentified persons took place in Punjab during the period. It gave account of another 2,609 cases where identities of the victims are known.
Senior advocate and rights activist Colin Gonsalves said not a single policeman went to jail or got life imprisonment for “killing in cold blood of people in custody”. “State terror is the deadliest of terror. There is no media coverage, no court cases, no documentation.”
Prayer for the victims
Despite its censorship, Satluj has successfully forced a conversation back into the mainstream on due justice against state violence in Punjab. Even after the restrictions there are videos doing rounds of public screening of the film in Punjab, with Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday (July 8, 2026) saying that his party will screen the film ‘Satluj’ in every village and corner of Punjab.
The Akal Takht said it will hold ‘ardas’ (prayers) on the banks of the Satluj river at Harike Pattan on July 14 for the eternal peace of those innocent Sikh youths whose stories were revived by the film. Jathedar of Akal Takht, Giani Kuldeep Singh Gargajj, said that, no collective ardas has previously been held “for the innocent youths, women, elderly people, and children who fell victim to government and police excesses in Punjab”.
