Overview
- The film formerly billed as Punjab ’95 began streaming on ZEE5 on Friday, July 3, 2026, when the platform quietly published the retitled feature for its Hindi feed.
- Director Honey Trehan, lead actor Diljit Dosanjh, and Khalra’s widow Paramjit Kaur publicly confirmed the version on ZEE5 is the complete, unchanged film that they had previously screened for family and collaborators.
- The project faced a prolonged certification battle with India’s Central Board of Film Certification that started in late 2022, included repeated demands for large numbers of cuts and title changes, and led to the film’s withdrawal from TIFF 2023 and a Bombay High Court filing.
- Satluj dramatizes the work of human rights investigator Jaswant Singh Khalra, whose research on alleged unlawful killings and secret cremations in Punjab helped secure later convictions of police officers in his 1995 abduction and murder.
- The direct-to-OTT release avoids further domestic certification delays, will revive public debate about state accountability and historical memory, and could influence how politically sensitive Indian films choose distribution paths in future.