Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Monday alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had approached the Central Government to get the film ‘Satluj’ removed from an OTT platform. She also demanded that all restrictions on the film’s release be lifted.
Interacting with mediapersons after addressing public meetings in Mansa, Harsimrat said, “It is a matter of grave concern that the AAP government is going against the sentiments of the Sikh community, which wants the world to know about the gruesome manner in which the Congress tried to wipe out an entire generation of youth in Punjab.”
She added, “Instead of siding with the community, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who is declared ‘Guru Dokhi’ and ‘Panth Virodhi’, has decided to shield the Congress by approaching the Centre to remove ‘Satluj’ from the Zee5 streaming platform.”
Asserting that this proved the Congress and AAP were two sides of the same coin, she said, “The Congress government led by Beant Singh not only supervised extrajudicial killings of youth but also eliminated human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who exposed the mass secret cremations carried out by the Punjab Police in Amritsar. Similarly, the AAP government led by Bhagwant Mann is indulging in large-scale encounters, with the Punjab Police chief admitting that 350 youths have been killed in encounters, including 34 in the last three months.”
Harsimrat called for the withdrawal of the alleged order and demanded the theatrical release of the film without any cuts. “Our future generations need to know about the era in which a political party like the Congress resorted to mass encounters of youth and how one man exposed its black deeds with proof,” she said, adding that once the SAD formed the government in the state, ‘Satluj’ would be screened in every village.
About the infighting in the Congress, Harsimrat said, “Senior Congress leaders like Charanjit Singh Channi and Raja Warring are involved in corruption and have lost all credibility among the masses. People are fed up with both the Congress and AAP, as well as their informal alliance, and that is why they are gravitating towards SAD.”
