‘I warned Amar Singh Chamkila that he was in danger; Dharmendra’s cousin was shot three days after I met him’: Yograj Singh

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In an interview with Untold Punjab, Yograj recalled his interactions with Bhindranwale, and the conversations he had with both Veerendra and Chamkila. “I went to meet him, and there he was, a very soft-spoken man. He offered me a tall glass of milk; I still remember. I asked, ‘Ki hukum?’ and he sent me away. He said that I have a different purpose to serve,” Yograj said about his meeting with Bhindranwale, adding that men would show up on his sets to protect him from attacks.

He said, “I used to have 20-25 fully armed men around me. I was totally safe. Nobody could touch me… I was the only one allowed to work in the Punjabi film industry at the time. Mehar Mittal’s life was in danger; they said he was too outspoken. Three days before Veerendra died, I met him and told him, ‘Paaji, postpone your shooting’… And then there was Chamkila, who was a huge singer. One of my films had his songs, which I didn’t like. I was warned not to work with him. I apologised. In fact, I told Chamkila to be careful, and he said, ‘Who would want to kill me?'”

Yograj told Chamkila that’s it wasn’t a matter of who would want to kill him, but it was a matter of preserving the purity of their culture. In an interview with Cine Punjabi, Chamkila’s secretary, Manku, had recalled the singer’s final moments. “The shooters were among the crowd. They could have shot him on the way. They could have shot him after he’d stepped onto the stage. Who knows, even I might have been shot if they’d fired at the stage. But they waited. Chamkila arrived in his car in grand fashion, it was a scene straight out of a movie. I said, ‘Put your hands together, Chamkila is here’.’ No sooner than I’d said this, I heard loud bangs.”

Kabir Singh Chowdhry, the director of the film Mehsampur, had revealed that he’d spoken to one of Chamkila’s murderers. In an interview with Hindustan Times, he said, “Spending time on the ground in Punjab pursuing Chamkila’s story, I inevitably crossed paths with one of Chamkila’s killers who is still alive. While I did get some insight into the motivations behind the act, I wouldn’t put too much weight on it.”

In a chat with the YouTube channel RPD 24, Chamkila’s songwriter recalled that he received threatening letters from various groups, and that he even went to meet Bhindranwale. Swaran Sivia said, “They told him to proceed with caution. Tell them that you will sing good and decent songs and they won’t threaten you anymore.”