Diljit Dosanjh's Satluj Pulled From Zee5 In India
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- Zee5 pulled Satluj from India two days after its July 3 launch, citing unspecified "current developments," while the film remains available outside India.
- Satluj, directed by Honey Trehan and starring Diljit Dosanjh, tells the story of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who uncovered unlawful killings and disappearances of thousands of Sikhs by Punjab police between 1984 and 1994 before being abducted and murdered in September 1995.
- The film was originally titled Ghallughara, then Punjab '95, and was produced by Ronnie Screwvala's RSVP Movies and MacGuffin Pictures, the banner founded by Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey.
- India's Central Board of Film Classification demanded numerous cuts and a name change after the film was submitted in late 2022, and the team pulled the movie from its planned 2023 Toronto International Film Festival world premiere rather than accept those terms.
- At a 2025 Cannes screening, Trehan told Deadline that "there's pressure on my producers to write off the film, coming from government officials, from central government officials."
- Trehan told The Indian Express he learned of the removal at around 8:15 pm on Sunday and was "at a loss" for how to react, while Zee5 said it stands by the movie and is "committed to exploring every appropriate avenue through due process to bring the film back."
- Six Punjab police officers were convicted of Khalra's abduction and murder roughly a decade after he disappeared in September 1995.
Why it matters: The two-day turnaround — after Trehan publicly stated in 2025 that government officials were pressuring producers to write off the film — suggests the censorship concerns he'd flagged have now materialized into a removal. Zee5's opaque "current developments" language leaves Satluj's domestic availability uncertain while the film remains accessible internationally, including for the Sikh community in India whose history the movie documents.
