Satluj, the Diljit Dosanjh drama that Indian censors spent three years cutting and retitling before blocking outright, vanished from ZEE5's Indian catalogue on Sunday night, less than 48 hours after it finally premiered uncut. Outside India, on the platform's international service, it is still streaming.
ZEE5 told Indian subscribers the film is unavailable "until further notice", citing "current developments", and gave no further explanation. A spokesperson for RSVP Movies, which co-produced the film with MacGuffin Pictures, was blunter, telling trade outlet Screen: "The government has pulled it down." No ministry has publicly claimed the order and no legal instrument has been published.
Directed by Honey Trehan, Satluj stars Dosanjh as Jaswant Singh Khalra, the Punjab human rights activist who documented enforced disappearances and illegal cremations during the state's militancy years and was abducted and murdered in 1995. Several Punjab police officers were later convicted over his killing. Trehan learned of the takedown at 8.15pm on Sunday. "I am at a loss right now," he said. "I don't know how to react."
The film's path to release was a censorship saga in its own right. Shot as Ghallughara, it was cleared by India's film certification board only with 21 cuts and a forced retitle to Punjab '95. The demanded cuts grew to 85 and then 127, Trehan refused, and a planned 2023 Toronto film festival premiere was withdrawn. It reached ZEE5 on 3 July under its third title, named for the river that runs through Punjab, as an uncut director's cut.
Dosanjh's response leaned on the arithmetic of the internet. "Once anything lands online, it never gets deleted," he said in a video message, adding in Punjabi, in a line his team translated: "The film will not stop. No one can silence Khalra Sahib's voice." Punjab party Shiromani Akali Dal's chief Sukhbir Singh Badal went further: "This is not merely censorship. It is an attack on our collective memory, the truth, and freedom of expression."
ZEE5 says it wants the film back. "We remain committed to exploring every appropriate avenue through due process to bring the film back to our audiences at the earliest opportunity," the platform said in a statement. It has not said who instructed the removal it carried out.
For Australian audiences this is a censorship story with a local viewing angle. Satluj continues to stream on ZEE5 Global, the platform's international service, whose markets include Australia, the Sunday Guardian reported. Dosanjh is no marginal figure here either: his 2025 Aura tour made him the first Indian artist to headline Australian stadiums, selling more than 90,000 tickets across six cities, according to touring trade IQ Magazine.
What happens next runs on two tracks: whether ZEE5's due-process push restores the film in India, and whether the takedown order itself is ever put in writing. Two days in, there is still nothing on paper.
