Khalistani terrorist Pannun seeks ‘martyr’ status for Khalra, projects him as pro-Khalistani; how Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Satluj’ is fuelling separatist propaganda
· OpIndia
On 11th July, United States-based Khalistani terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun wrote to the Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib seeking the status of “Qaumi Shaheed” for human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. Pannun, founder and general counsel of the banned Khalistani terrorist outfit Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), also launched a website for the same.
Source: SFJ/XIn the two-page letter, Pannun also asked the Akal Takht to organise a “Shaheedi Samagam” on 6th September, the day on which Khalra was reportedly “abducted” by police personnel from outside his house in Amritsar. He called upon 10 lakh Sikhs to assemble at the Akal Takht complex in Amritsar that day.
Visit afsport.lat for more information.
Source: SFJ/XThe website launched by SFJ seeking martyr status for Khalra has an option to send an email directly to the Akal Takht Jathedar. Pannun urged his supporters to “flood” the Jathedar’s office with the demand.
Screenshot of website launched by SFJ. Source: SFJ/X
The demand has been raised by Pannun days after the Dosanjh-starrer Satluj revived the debate over Khalra and the insurgency period in Punjab. The film has already been adopted as political material by pro-Khalistani groups. Jailed pro-Khalistani MP Amritpal Singh’s party has organised screenings of downloaded copies across Punjab. Now, Pannun has entered the issue with an openly separatist campaign.
Source: XThe film has subtly portrayed the Khalistani insurgency as a form of resistance against police and administrative brutality against Sikhs. In reality, Khalistani terrorism in Punjab had reached a point where the police and armed forces were pushed to take strict action to end militancy in the state. While it is true that innocent Sikhs were picked up and killed in extrajudicial circumstances, it does not mean that the brutal attacks against Hindus and Sikhs who opposed militancy can be whitewashed as mere resistance.
Pannun presented Khalra as a pro-Khalistani ‘activist’
In the subject of the letter itself, Pannun described Khalra as someone who had supported and defended pro-Khalistani Sikhs against India’s so-called “policy of extermination”. Pannun did not describe Khalra merely as a human rights activist who documented alleged illegal cremations. He recast him as an ideological supporter of the Khalistani movement and a defender of Sikh separatism, something the makers and supporters of Satluj have avoided doing.
Pannun claimed that the Indian government used President’s Rule, the Punjab Disturbed Areas Act, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and TADA to eliminate Khalistani terrorists and their supporters. He further claimed that the entire state administration was under the direct control of Delhi.
The letter further claims that Khalra supported the “Sikh right to self-determination”. It describes those killed during counter-terror operations as “pro-Khalistan Sikhs actively fighting armed forces, their supporters, and their families”.
SFJ has claimed that Khalra documented more than 2,000 illegal cremations in Amritsar district. It then expanded the allegation to an estimated 25,000 enforced disappearances across Punjab. The larger figure in the SFJ campaign is presented as an allegation and not as a court-established number. Notably, the figure of 25,000 has always been an estimate that has repeatedly been presented as a factual statistic.
Pannun also communalised the counter-terror operations. He referred to personnel deployed from central forces and other states as “majoritarian Hindu police officers”. He accused them of acting under orders from the Union government to crush the Khalistani movement.
He deliberately framed the letter in a way that changed the story from a debate over police excesses into a Hindu versus Sikh conflict. It also erased the role of Sikh police officials, Sikh politicians and ordinary Sikh citizens who opposed Khalistani terrorism.
Pannun makes the Khalistan objective clear
Pannun’s accompanying statement left no doubt about the purpose of the campaign. He asked the Sikh diaspora to “defeat India’s narrative” and declared that the mobilisation around Khalra would be used to achieve the “ultimate goal” of the Sikh campaign.
The statement is important because the campaign is not limited to demanding accountability for Khalra’s abduction and murder. It seeks to use his death to promote separatism and challenge India’s sovereignty, 30 years after Khalra was killed.
SFJ wants the Akal Takht to provide religious legitimacy to this political campaign. It wants the title of ‘Qaumi Shaheed’ for Khalra, a mass gathering in Amritsar and global mobilisation through a digital petition.
The organisation is effectively attempting to take control of the narrative created by Satluj. It is using Khalra’s story to project the Khalistani movement as a struggle against “extermination”.
Akal Takht separately calls for Khalra commemoration
As SFJ called for Khalra to be declared a “martyr”, a similar demand was later raised by the Secretariat of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, which appealed to Sikh organisations and devotees to commemorate Khalra on 6th September. The programme mentioned by the Secretariat is scheduled to be held at Gurdwara Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji in Khadoor Sahib. It is being organised with Khalra’s family and the Human Rights Protection Committee. In the appeal, devotees were asked to participate in large numbers and offer prayers.
How ‘Satluj’ brought Khalra back into focus
Satluj, directed by Honey Trehan, is based on the life and death of Jaswant Singh Khalra. The film was originally titled Ghallughara, which means holocaust. It was later renamed ‘Punjab ’95’ before finally being released as Satluj.
The film appeared quietly on ZEE5 on 3rd July. It was removed from the Indian version of the platform within two days, though it remained available internationally. No government order banning the film has been made public.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had earlier sought several changes before clearing it for theatrical release. The makers chose to release the uncut version on an OTT platform. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) later constituted a three-member committee to examine the matter.
The controversy is not simply about whether police excesses should be depicted. They should be discussed. The problem is that Satluj presented only one side of Punjab’s bloodiest period.
The film portrayed the state as the principal villain. Khalistani terrorists were softened or pushed into the background. The assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh was framed as an act of “revenge”. The reasons behind the severe police response were not examined at all.
KPS Gill, who led the campaign that eventually broke the back of militancy, was represented through a fictionalised police officer shown as a brutal antagonist. The killings of Hindus, police personnel, government officials and Sikhs who opposed Khalistan did not receive comparable space or even a mere mention.
Amritpal Singh’s party turned the film into political material
After ZEE5 removed the film in India, Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De), the party associated with jailed pro-Khalistani MP Amritpal Singh, began organising public screenings in villages.
Downloaded copies were shown using projectors and large screens in Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Moga and other areas. Party leader Rashpal Singh Sosan also shared an old video in which Amritpal Singh praised Khalra.
Diljit Dosanjh had earlier said that people had already downloaded the film. ZEE5 later urged viewers not to support piracy. Despite that appeal, downloaded copies were publicly screened by Amritpal Singh’s party.
The party has not been screening Satluj merely as a film. It is using Diljit’s popularity and Khalra’s story to build a political narrative. The film offered a ready-made account in which separatists could be projected as victims while the Indian state became the sole aggressor.
Pannun’s intervention takes that process further. Amritpal Singh’s party is carrying the film to Punjab’s villages. SFJ is now trying to take the same narrative to the Akal Takht and the global Sikh diaspora.
Khalra’s murder was real, but it cannot justify separatist propaganda
Jaswant Singh Khalra’s work and murder cannot be dismissed. Khalra was a bank employee who examined crematorium records and firewood purchase receipts. His investigation raised serious questions about unidentified bodies cremated during the counter-terror operations.
A CBI investigation confirmed 2,097 such cremations in Amritsar district. Of these, 582 bodies were identified and 278 were partially identified. Khalra was abducted by Punjab Police personnel in September 1995 and killed in custody.
Six police personnel were convicted at the trial stage. The Punjab and Haryana High Court later upheld five convictions and enhanced the sentences to life imprisonment. The Supreme Court upheld those convictions and sentences in 2011.
These facts must be acknowledged. Police excesses occurred. Innocent people were killed. Officers responsible for Khalra’s murder were prosecuted and convicted through the Indian judicial system.
However, accepting these facts does not require accepting Pannun’s claim that the Indian government followed a policy of exterminating Sikhs. It does not turn every person killed or cremated during that period into a Khalistani “freedom fighter”. It certainly does not provide moral legitimacy to the demand for an independent Khalistan.
The Hindu and Sikh victims missing from Pannun’s narrative
Punjab did not become a battlefield because the police suddenly decided to target Sikhs. Khalistani terrorist groups had spent years assassinating politicians, journalists, police officers and civilians. Hindus were separated from Sikhs on buses and trains before being shot.
On 15th June 1991, Khalistani terrorists attacked two passenger trains near Ludhiana. They killed 110 people. Most of the victims were Hindus. In one of the attacks, the terrorists separated Hindu passengers from Sikhs, forced them off the train and shot them beside the railway tracks. Another 49 Hindu passengers were killed in a train massacre in December that year.
In November 1989, Khalistani terrorists entered a hostel at Thapar Engineering College in Patiala and opened fire on students attending a youth festival. Nineteen students were killed. Most of them were Hindus from institutions in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
Then-Chief Minister of Punjab Beant Singh, himself a Sikh, was assassinated in a suicide bombing in August 1995. Sixteen others were also killed in the suicide bombing by Khalistani terrorists. Yet Satluj presents his murder through the language of revenge rather than showing the full horror of the terrorist attack.
The estimated number of deaths during the Khalistani insurgency stands at around 21,500. Of those, 11,700 were civilians, including 4,500 Hindus. These people rarely appeared in the renewed conversation around Satluj at the beginning. However, social media users are now raising questions such as, “Who will talk about the Hindu victims of Khalistani terrorism?”
Still, there are no viral campaigns to remember the Hindu students killed in their hostel. There are no international petitions for passengers murdered after terrorists checked their religion. There is no campaign to talk about the Abohar Goli Kand of March 1991 or the attack on RSS activists at a shakha in Moga. The police officers and anti-Khalistan Sikhs killed by extremists are also being treated as footnotes.
Who is Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, founder of Sikhs For Justice
Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) is a Khalistani organisation that was declared an unlawful association by the Government of India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in July 2019. Pannun was designated an individual terrorist under the same law in July 2020.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has described SFJ as a secessionist organisation running the so-called ‘Referendum 2020’ campaign for the creation of Khalistan. The NIA has also said that the outfit attempts to mobilise the Sikh diaspora for illegal separatist activities.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has repeatedly issued threats against India, its leaders and its institutions. His campaigns routinely combine online propaganda, rewards, provocative slogans and attempts to exploit religious or political events.
His involvement makes the appropriation of Khalra particularly dangerous. Pannun is not seeking an honest examination of police conduct. He has already stated that his objective is an independent Khalistan. Khalra’s death is useful to him only as a tool to delegitimise India and recruit support for separatism.
Campaign launched ahead of PM Modi’s visit and Punjab elections
The campaign has also emerged at a politically sensitive time. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Punjab on 17th July to inaugurate the redeveloped Jalandhar Cantt railway station. The project has been completed at an estimated cost of ₹125 crore.
Ahead of the visit, SFJ released a video purportedly filmed at Firozpur Cantt railway station. The footage showed “Khalistan Zindabad” and “Modi Murdabad” written on coaches of a Delhi-bound train.
On one side, SFJ is invoking Khalra and asking the Akal Takht to lead a mass gathering. On the other, it is promoting anti-India and anti-Modi slogans on public property. Both activities serve the same larger objective. They seek visibility, confrontation and political polarisation.
Punjab is also heading towards Assembly elections in 2027. Political parties have already begun positioning themselves for the contest. Pro-Khalistani groups will have an interest in keeping questions of militancy, prisoners, alleged state oppression and Sikh victimhood at the centre of public discussion.
Satluj has provided them with emotionally powerful material. Amritpal Singh’s party has taken it to villages. Gurdwaras across states are promoting and screening the film. Pannun is attempting to internationalise it and obtain religious legitimacy from the Akal Takht.
Pannun’s campaign exposes the real danger of the one-sided narrative
The issue is not whether Khalra should be remembered. Nor is it whether police officers who committed crimes should be punished. India’s courts have already convicted officers not only for Khalra’s abduction and murder but also in similar cases, such as that of Baljit Singh, a Sikh who was picked up and later killed by Punjab Police personnel.
The issue is whether Khalra’s story should be surrendered to a designated terrorist who openly wants to break India.
Pannun’s letter exposed the danger of presenting Punjab’s militancy years through only one set of victims. Once the killings committed by Khalistani terrorists are removed, terrorism can be repackaged as resistance. Once Hindu and anti-Khalistan Sikh victims disappear, the state can be presented as an occupying force.
That is precisely the narrative Pannun wants. His own statement connects the campaign directly to an independent Khalistan.
The controversy around Satluj has therefore moved beyond cinema. The film is now being used for village-level political mobilisation, diaspora propaganda and an attempt to reignite separatist propaganda in Punjab, particularly ahead of the Assembly elections.