New Delhi: Expressing anguish over the continued “withholding” of the Diljit Dosanjh- starrer Punjab ‘95, BJP national spokesperson R.P.Singh has urged the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to immediately release the movie without any cuts.
The movie has not been released in India as it is yet to be certified by the CBFC. It is based on the life of slain human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, a former bank manager who exposed mass disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Punjab during the militancy era.
Though the movie was privately screened at Cannes for a small group of Indian and international journalists, the film’s official release date is still uncertain.
Singh cited the examples of recent movies such as ‘The Kashmir Files’, ‘The Kerala Story’, and ‘The Sabarmati Report’, which, he said, were allowed to be released without any obstruction. “If narrative freedom is respected for those accounts, then a film rooted in judicial evidence cannot be treated differently,” he argued in his letter to CBFC chairperson Prasoon Joshi.
The BJP leader said Khalra is not merely a Sikh figure but a global human-rights icon. “His name is taught in international institutions, and public spaces abroad honour his legacy. Yet in the very nation whose Constitution he defended with his life, his story remains stalled from reaching its own people,” he added.
“As on 2nd November, we approach 30 years since his (Khalra’s) abduction, I appeal to the Chairman of CBFC to uphold the constitutional right of citizens to access truth, and permit the release of Punjab ’95—uncut, unaltered, and unafraid,” Singh posted on ‘X’.
The BJP spokesperson said he was deeply perturbed by the recent reaction of Dosanjh, who portrays the role of Khalra in the movie.
“When even an artist known to consciously stay away from political commentary feels compelled to speak out, it reflects the depth of pain within the Sikh community over the continued blocking of the film’s release,” Singh said.
He further urged Joshi to “recognise that this is not a matter of technical delay—withholding this film is being perceived as a continuation of the very suppression Sikhs endured under the Congress governments of the 1980s and 1990s”.
“The community still carries the trauma of state excesses from that era—unlawful disappearances, custodial killings, and mass illegal cremations—all of which Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra courageously exposed before being abducted and murdered for speaking the truth,” he asserted.
Earlier this year, taking to Instagram, Dosanjh had posted about the delay. “We are very sorry and it pains us to inform you that the movie Punjab ’95 will not release on 7th Feb due to circumstances beyond our control.”
The CBFC had earlier suggested 120 cuts to the film given that it was based on a sensitive topic.
Singh said he had a conversation with the film’s director Honey Trehan and the movie draws entirely from judicial records and documented court proceedings, including the findings of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
He further pointed out that the film is, in fact, verified history and not fictitious cinema. “By preventing the release of Punjab ’95, the CBFC is unintentionally reinforcing the silence once imposed by that same apparatus and inflicting fresh emotional hurt on a community that has never received closure for those crimes.
Singh said as India marks 50 years since the Emergency, a period remembered for censorship and the silencing of truth, “we must not give hardliners an opportunity to weaponise this moment against us”.
“The continued withholding of Punjab ’95 risks what feels like a second disappearance of Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra—this time not from physical existence, but from our collective constitutional memory as a nation,” he added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)