Satluj Review

Honey Trehan compiled some 1,800 pages of research for this account of Jaswant Singh Khalra, the Amritsar bank employee whose search for one missing woman led him to crematorium records of bodies burned without names. Written with Niren Bhatt and Utsav Maitra, it follows Khalra's campaign from a dismissive police station to audiences abroad, then to the CBI inquiry after his own abduction, with Arjun Rampal as the investigator and narrator.

Dosanjh, who took a symbolic one rupee fee, plays Khalra with none of his comic star persona: patient, stubborn, a man who keeps count. Suvinder Vicky's police chief, modeled on Ajit Singh Sandhu, is chilling, and K. U. Mohanan's muted photography keeps the violence plain rather than operatic. At 164 minutes it has indulgent stretches, and Nandini Ramnath at Scroll argued that its stress on Khalra's faith understates the leftist politics he came from.

The censor board demanded a new title and then more than 120 cuts, a Toronto premiere in 2023 was withdrawn, and Trehan and Dosanjh refused to release an altered version. It finally streamed uncut on ZEE5 on July 3, 2026, was pulled for Indian viewers two days later, and spread anyway through pirated copies and gurdwara screenings. All 12 reviews counted by Rotten Tomatoes were positive.