A day after the film Satluj – which depicts extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances by the Punjab police in the 1990s – was removed from the streaming platform Zee5, political leaders condemned the move to “censor” one of the state’s “darkest chapters”.

The Honey Trehan film, previously titled Punjab ’95 and led by Diljit Dosanjh, was released on Zee5 on Friday evening. By late Sunday evening, the movie had been removed from the platform.

Zee5 posted on social media that “in light of the current developments, Satluj will be unavailable in India until further notice”. It did not elaborate on the nature of these developments

On Monday, Shiromani Akali Dal leader Sukhbir Singh Badal said that the “powerful film that courageously unveils Punjab’s painful history…cannot be silenced this way”.

“This is not mere censorship,” Badal said on social media. “It is an assault on our collective memory, truth and freedom of expression.”

He added: “Punjab deserves to confront its past with honest not suppression.”

The film is based on human rights activist Jaswinder Singh Khalra’s efforts to expose the culture of brutality and impunity that prevailed in Punjab under the guise of fighting the Khalistani movement.

Khalra was abducted in September 1995, never to be seen again. A Central Bureau of Investigation team found that a Punjab police unit had held Khalra without charges, murdered him in October 1995 and dumped his body. A handful of police officers were eventually convicted for the murders.

In the film, Diljit Dosanjh’s character Jaswant investigates a death squad that has the protection of Bitta, the state police chief.

Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira said on Monday that the “removal of this fact-based film is in contradiction to the decision of the Supreme Court that upheld the conviction of guilty police officers responsible for the abduction of [Khalra]”.

“I urge the government of India to release the film so that our present and future generations know what a police state is,” he added.

Aam Aadmi Party MP Malvinder Singh Kang said that “when a nation begins to fear its own history, censorship becomes its most dangerous weapon”.

“Propaganda-driven films such as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story were promoted and screened without obstruction,” Kang said in a social media post. “Yet when a film raises uncomfortable questions about the human rights violations and atrocities in Punjab, it disappears from an OTT platform.”

Punjab ’95 had faced strict censorship after it was completed in 2022. Over the course of several months, the censor board had demanded 127 cuts, effectively scuttling the release, Trehan had told Scroll in an interview last year.

The version that was briefly available on Zee5 was uncut.

Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Sneha.