‘After killing so many, one body proved too heavy for the State’: Jaswant Singh Khalra’s daughter on Satluj

Three decades later, Khalra is back in public discourse after his biopic, Satluj, was removed from an OTT platform shortly after its release. While the film has been taken off streaming, community screenings continue across Punjab.

In an interview with The Indian Express, Navkiran, now an engineer based in the United States, spoke about growing up with her father, the impact of his case, the controversy around Satluj, and why she believes his work continues to unsettle the establishment.

Jaswant Singh Khalra with his kids (Special Arrangement)

You were only 10 when your father was abducted. What do you remember about those days?

I was young, but my father never hid what he was doing. I remember accompanying him when Ram Narayan Kumar was filming (the documentary) Disappearances in Punjab. He showed me photographs of bodies being taken out of trucks for cremation. Foreign journalists, researchers and activists were frequent visitors to our home. As children, we did not understand the scale of what he was documenting, but we knew it involved people who had disappeared and families searching for answers.

Whenever we travelled through villages, people would stop him and narrate what had happened to their sons or brothers. We could see their grief even if we could not fully understand it.

Like any child, I believed the police existed to catch criminals. That belief ended on September 6, 1995. We came home from school and were told Papa had been taken away by the police. Soon afterwards, policemen began visiting our house repeatedly, pressuring my mother to withdraw the case and not name those involved.

Khalra family in Fresno, US where a park is named after him. (Express photo)

When we shifted to our Amritsar house in 1994, my father said something that seemed strange at the time. During a small gathering with neighbours, he remarked, “I am an ordinary man from village Khalra. If any police officer comes asking where Khalra lives, just show him my house.” Only later did we realise he knew the risks he was taking.

After his abduction, hundreds of families began arriving at our doorstep. Many had approached the courts on my father’s advice to trace relatives who had disappeared. That was when we realised his work was much larger than our own family.

Within three days, my mother decided she could not sit at home waiting. She moved the Supreme Court. Importantly, she did not seek relief only for my father’s disappearance. She also placed before the court his entire investigation into alleged fake encounters and illegal cremations. That became the basis for the CBI investigation. His case ultimately opened the door for many other victims to seek justice.

How did your father’s case change Punjab and the system?

My father never ran away from the system; he chose to challenge it through the law. Once, when my grandfather worried that his activism would drag the family into endless court cases, my father replied, “Main kite ni bhajjeya (I am not running anywhere)”.

When he was abducted, fake encounters and disappearances were happening across Punjab. Few questioned the police. His case changed that. For the first time, the Punjab police found itself defending its actions before courts, the media and the international community.

They probably never imagined that after so many killings, one body would become so heavy for them.

Questions about Khalra were raised from Canada to the United States. The pressure did not remain confined to Punjab.

Despite warnings, my mother refused security or any change in our routine. We continued living in the same house and studying in the same schools. She believed fear could not become our way of life.

Khalra with his wife Paramjit Kaur and both kids at Golden Temple. (Express photo)

For nearly three years, we did not know what had happened to my father. We suspected the worst but had no proof. It was only after former policeman Kuldip Singh Bachra disclosed in 1998 how my father had been killed that we accepted he was gone.

My father’s death, painful as it was, probably saved many others from suffering the same fate.

More than three decades later, Satluj has brought your father’s story back into public discussion, but the film has also been taken off the OTT platform. How do you view the controversy?

We were never surprised. We had anticipated resistance from the beginning. We had even told director Honey Trehan that making this film would not be easy.

One body proved too heavy for the State to forget. My father has haunted the system since 1995 and, clearly, he still does.

Ironically, the attempt to stop the film has only drawn more attention to it. People are now reading about that period, discussing it and asking questions. That, in itself, is significant.

Honey Trehan based his work on court records and documented evidence. Nothing in the film has been imagined. In fact, we had made our position clear: if the film had to be released, it should be released in its entirety. We would not support a heavily diluted version.

People often question my father’s estimate of 25,000 disappeared persons. We continue to stand by that figure unless someone can prove otherwise.

Some politicians and critics continue to portray your father as sympathetic to the Khalistan movement. The Centre has justified the ban by citing security concerns and the possibility of fuelling radical sentiment. How do you respond?

My father was a law-abiding citizen. Ironically, even the Punjab police never claimed he had committed any offence. During the trial, their position was that there was not a single criminal case registered against him. So the obvious question is: if he had committed no crime, why was he abducted and killed?

He believed that justice had to be pursued through institutions established by law. That is exactly what my mother did after his abduction by approaching the Supreme Court.

Yes, my father was a devout Sikh. He deeply identified and sympathised with the struggle and suffering of Sikhs during that period. There is nothing to deny about that. But he never reduced his work to religion. He documented every victim he came across. Hindu names were never excluded from his records. In 1980s, he also did hunger strike after militants had killed some Hindus. He was against any kind of violence. His concern was human rights, not the religion of the victim.

Jaswant Singh Khalra with his kids (Special Arrangement)

He believed every movement had to remain rooted in justice and should never harm innocent people, irrespective of religion or caste. Many of his closest friends were Hindus who stood with our family and grieved with us after his death.

What I find striking is that people who have actually watched the film are talking about disappearances, illegal cremations and human rights. The Khalistan debate is largely being pushed by those who want attention diverted from those uncomfortable questions.

The attempt to revive a Hindu-Sikh binary only distracts from the central issue.

Punjab is heading towards another election. Political parties have already begun taking positions on the film. Do you expect any support from them?

We have learnt not to expect much from political parties. For us, all parties – BJP, Congress, SAD or now AAP – are the same. The BJP has proved this by banning the movie now.

My father worked with the Shiromani Akali Dal, yet after his abduction, my mother was advised by its leadership to move on with her life and focus on raising her children. We have therefore never viewed this as a fight that belonged to one political party or another.

For us, this was always about the State and the way it exercised power. Governments changed, parties changed, but our legal battle continued for sixteen years before convictions finally came in my father’s case.

If political leaders are genuinely concerned today, they should support an honest accounting of everyone who died in Punjab during those years. Why not conduct an independent “death census” so that the truth is established on the basis of evidence rather than competing narratives?

Critics say the film presents only one side of Punjab’s tragedy and does not adequately portray the killings of Hindus by militants or others who suffered during the insurgency.

For nearly forty years, the State’s version of events dominated public discourse. Only now are Sikhs and Punjabis beginning to tell their own stories. That should not be seen as erasing anyone else’s suffering.

Every innocent life lost matters. Hindus, Sikhs and people from other communities all suffered during those years. My father never excluded Hindu victims from his documentation. But we also have to acknowledge that a very large number of those allegedly killed in fake encounters and secret cremations were Sikhs.

Recognising one set of victims does not diminish another. The real challenge is to build a complete and honest historical record.

Khalra has haunted the system for three decades because the issues he raised have never been fully addressed. Until the truth is confronted honestly, his story will continue to return.