127 cuts, no release: Diljit Dosanjh's Punjab 95 is caught in a cycle of postponements, disappointments, says director Honey Trehan

An Indian film screened on the sidelines of the recent Cannes film festival which caught the eye of a group of visiting Indian and international journalists was Punjab '95, produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies, directed by Honey Trehan, and starring Diljit Dosanjh, Kanwaljeet, Arjun Rampal, Suvinder Vicky and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, among others.

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It was a private screening organised by the director who has been running from the proverbial pillar to post for the past two years to get the film released. In September 2023, it was meant to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), but the filmmakers were told by Indian authorities that they would have to pull out the film. Since then, there’s been a stand-off between the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and the filmmakers, causing the film to lie in limbo, joining other recent films which have been stopped from releasing, including Sandhya Suri's ‘Santosh’, which officially screened in Cannes in 2024.

Punjab ‘95 tells the story of an ordinary man who became extraordinary through his dogged attempts to help those who could not help themselves. Jaswant Singh Khalra, a bank manager in Amritsar, got sucked into the murky goings-on in the state at a time when terrorist activity was rife. After some digging, it was found that the legitimate action against militants was being used to target innocents, leading to an unconscionable number of extra-judicial killings. Khalra’s initial attempts to discover what happened to a family he knew well led him to uncovering a massive cover-up, and he became a thorn in the side of those in power. In September 1995, he was abducted from his home, and taken to the police station; after a few days, he was found dead, his body showing signs of torture.