'Satluj Row Only Amplified Curiosity': Journalist Who Broke Khalra Murder Story

As the controversy surrounding Satluj intensifies a week after its release, senior journalist Satinder Bains, whose reporting first exposed the abduction and killing of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, has said the Centre's decision to ban the film was a mistake that only fuelled public curiosity.

Speaking to NDTV's Senior Executive Editor Aditya Raj Kaul, Bains said the film is largely faithful to the historical record and rejected allegations that it glorifies terrorism or promotes separatism. He also said the renewed debate surrounding Khalra's killing was now being politically leveraged by the Shiromani Akali Dal ahead of the Punjab Assembly elections.

Satluj, which dramatises the extra-judicial killing of Jaswant Singh Khalra by Punjab Police in 1995, was banned by the government two days after its release. However, the ban has done little to curb its circulation online, with the film continuing to be shared widely on WhatsApp and social media, reigniting debate over one of the darkest chapters of Punjab's militancy years, the alleged mass cremations of unidentified bodies and the killing of the man who sought to expose them.

Bains, who covered the case for The Indian Express throughout the mid-1990s, said he had personally watched the film and found little to object to in its depiction of the events. According to him, the narrative is largely accurate, with only minor factual deviations, including the identity of the officer who fired the fatal shots and the portrayal of the assassination of a former Punjab Chief Minister.

NDTV has accessed The Indian Express report by Satinder Bains, published on May 5, 1996, under the headline "I Heard Two Shots, And I Ran Back. Khalra Had Stopped Breathing." The report marked a turning point in the investigation, which until then had been treated as a missing person's case.

Bains was the journalist who tracked down and interviewed Kuldeep Singh, a Special Police Officer (SPO) who had served as the driver of the Station House Officer allegedly involved in Khalra's killing. Kuldeep Singh's account, first documented by Bains and later recorded by the CBI, became a crucial piece of evidence that eventually led to the conviction and life imprisonment of five police personnel.

According to Bains, Khalra, then a bank employee turned human rights activist, had uncovered records suggesting that thousands of unidentified bodies had been secretly cremated in Punjab. Khalra estimated the number at around 6,500, while other activists put the figure much higher. Despite repeated warnings from senior police officers to abandon his investigation, he continued his work before being abducted from outside his home in September 1995.

Recounting Kuldeep Singh's testimony, Bains said Khalra was allegedly tortured for several weeks before being shot dead inside a police station in late October 1995. According to the witness, his body was later disposed of at a location where the river's current would carry it towards Pakistan. Bains added that Kuldeep Singh himself was later killed years after testifying and never received the protection or promotion he had allegedly been promised.

Bains also claimed that the late Punjab Director General of Police KPS Gill had ordered Khalra's elimination. However, he acknowledged that no direct evidence ever linked Gill to the murder and said Gill consistently maintained during conversations with him that he did not know who Khalra was.

The veteran journalist also revealed that one of the convicted officers, DSP Jaspal Singh, has remained untraceable since securing bail from Nabha Jail in 2023. Bains said there appeared to have been little effort to locate him, a development he recently reported on his own news portal, Punjab News Express.

On the political fallout, Bains said the film had introduced a younger generation of Punjabis to a painful chapter of the state's history and reopened conversations around alleged human rights violations committed during the anti-militancy campaign. He added that the Shiromani Akali Dal was attempting to channel the renewed public attention ahead of the Assembly elections, noting that both the Punjab government and the Centre at the time were led by the Congress.

Reflecting on the broader context of the militancy era, Bains said ordinary citizens, including Hindus, lived under constant fear during the late 1980s and early 1990s, with militants imposing social restrictions and dress codes that he likened to Taliban-style control. While he believed the state's crackdown on militancy was necessary, he said it was also accompanied by serious human rights violations, including custodial torture and extra-judicial killings, many of which have never been fully accounted for.