Satluj, Honey Trehan’s human rights drama starring Diljit Dosanjh, has been pulled days after its launch in India. The film has been at the center of a censorship battle and tells the story of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra.
It launched on the Zee5 streaming service on July 3. It was taken down two days later. Zee5 issued a statement on social media that said: “In light of current developments, Satluj will be unavailable in India until further notice.”
Zee5 did not elaborate on the “current developments” it alluded to, but added that it stood by the movie and is “committed to exploring every appropriate avenue through due process to bring the film back to our audiences.”
In an Instagram post, Zee5 added: “Satluj may have paused. But the conversation it started hasn’t. Thank you for the incredible love. We hope to bring it back soon.”
The movie follows Khalra’s campaign to uncover the unlawful killings and disappearances of thousands of Sikhs by Punjab police between 1984 and 1994. Khalra disappeared in September 1995. Six Punjab police officers were convicted of his abduction and murder a decade later.
Satluj was produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies and MacGuffin Pictures, the banner founded by Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey. The film was originally called Ghallughara, a Punjabi word that refers to historic massacres of the Sikh people. It was then called Punjab ’95, before finally getting its short-lived release with the title Satluj.
Ahead of release, it was in the news amid struggles to get certification. Trehan told Deadline that after it was submitted in late 2022, India’s Central Board of Film Classification demanded numerous cuts and for the film’s original name to be changed. The filmmakers pushed back, meaning long delays to the process.
The team behind the movie pulled it from the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of a planned world premiere in 2023. In 2025 it still had not been given a certificate. At a private screening at Cannes that year, Trehan told Deadline: “There’s pressure on my producers to write off the film, coming from government officials, from central government officials.”
Trehan’s reaction to Satluj getting pulled was reported in The Indian Express: “I got to know about the removal of Satluj from ZEE5 in India at around 8:15 pm on Sunday. I am at a loss right now. I don’t know how to react to this development.”
Zee5 added that the film remains available outside of India.
