India Blocks Film About Activist Who Documented Punjab Insurgency Killings

"Satluj" dramatizes the life of human rights campaigner Jaswant Singh Khalra, but censors have kept it from Indian audiences

A film chronicling the life of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the human rights activist who documented mass killings during Punjab's insurgency, remains blocked from release in India, according to Al Jazeera.

"Satluj" dramatizes Khalra's efforts to expose the scale of extrajudicial killings carried out during the decades-long insurgency in the northern Indian state, a chapter of the country's history that remains politically sensitive. Despite the ban, the film is still finding an audience through other means, Al Jazeera reported.

Khalra, whose investigations brought international attention to allegations of mass cremations and disappearances tied to the security response to the insurgency, became a prominent human rights figure before his own killing decades ago. Films and books addressing the period have periodically faced restrictions in India, where the subject continues to carry political weight.

The block on "Satluj" adds to a history of Indian censors restricting films that touch on communal violence, insurgency-era abuses or other politically fraught episodes, even as filmmakers continue to find ways to reach viewers outside official theatrical release, according to Al Jazeera's reporting.

— Compiled from reporting by Al Jazeera.