In the months before he went missing, Khalra addressed many local meetings and even travelled to Canada to convey the injustice that was being carried out by the government in Punjab. In April 1995, Khalra travelled to Canada where he put forth his findings and demanded answers from the authorities back in India.

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In his last recorded speech from this event, Khalra spoke about the ever-growing darkness, and how a lamp is enough to challenge the oppression that darkness brings with it. These lines were said in the film as well. When Diljit’s character, in an injured state, visits another character and appeals to his humanitarian side, he repeats the lines that were said by Khalra in real life.

‘I challenge the darkness’

“There is a fable that when the sun was setting for the first time, light was decreasing as it was completing its journey. Light was decreasing and the signs of darkness were appearing. It is said that people were scared that the sun will set, darkness will spread and no one will be able to see anything. What will happen to us? Everyone in the world was worried. The sun set. And in an attempt to show its strength, darkness found its foot on earth, but it is said that somewhere far away, in a hut, there was one lamp which was lighting,” he said.

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He continued, “That lamp said, ‘I challenge the darkness. If nothing else, then at least, I will not allow it to settle around me. I will have light around me’. And it is said that after looking at the strength of that lamp, every other hut lit a lamp, and the world was amazed to see how the lamps stopped the darkness from spreading its wings, so people could see clearly.”

Khalra compared this to the condition of Punjab and said, “I believe, today, when darkness is trying with all its strength to suppress the truth, then if nothing else, self-respecting Punjab, like a lamp, is challenging this darkness. I pray that the almighty bless this light and keep it lit.”

Khalra was discouraged by locals

Khalra then moved on to speak about the mission of his visit and said that he was here to talk about the oppression that Punjab, and the Sikh community had faced in the last 10 years, since Operation Bluestar in 1984. Khalra asked that he, along with a few others, had knocked on many doors to ask where many of their brothers had gone missing, but no one was giving them any answers.

“Our question was, thousands of mothers are waiting for their sons even though they know that their sons are not alive anymore, but a mother’s heart is such that even if she sees her son’s dead body she won’t accept that her son is no more. And those mothers who have not even seen the corpses of their sons, they are asking us: at least find out, is he even alive or not?”

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Khalra said that in the beginning, they were trying to collect the statistics of how many men had disappeared, but on many occasions, they were stopped by the family members of those who had lost their sons. “When we started talking about it, many mothers and sisters weren’t ready to say that they are missing. They would say, ‘Son, if you keep talking about it and if our son is still alive, they will kill him. Don’t talk about it. We are not even going to tell you about it’.”

‘KPS Gill claimed these men had become daily wagers’

Khalra said that based on his initial findings, they found that at least 2000 people were missing just in the district of Amritsar. When they questioned the authorities, they were not given any answers. Even after they approached the High Court with some of the families, the government told them that they had no knowledge of their whereabouts.

He then spoke about KPS Gill, who was the Director General of Police at the time. Much like in the film, here too, Khalra was told that the missing persons had actually gotten jobs as daily wagers in Europe, America and Canada, even though he had no proof to back up his claims.

“When the issue progressed, KPS Gill, in a press conference in Amritsar, said, ‘These human rights folks, they are not doing anything for human rights. They have an agenda so there is no peace in Punjab. They are ISI agents and they are hatching a conspiracy to discourage the police machinery so militancy returns.’ He even went on to say, ‘I will tell you where those kids are’. He said, ‘These kids are daily wage workers in America, Europe and Canada’.”

Director Honey Trehan and Diljit Dosanjh during the making of Satluj.

Khalra said that he had to “confront some serious dangers” to get to the bottom of the issue. He said that they went to the cremation grounds and found out that they had all the details of the bodies, which sometimes came by the truckloads. Even the names of the police officers that brought the dead bodies were available at the cremation grounds. Since the cremation grounds were given firewood by the municipal committee, the details of the corpses were submitted there as well. “We found the full account of our disappeared brothers,” he said.

‘6,017 dead bodies in 3 municipal cremation grounds of Amritsar’

“It is said that when one gets too arrogant, we say that he has forgotten about god, and he does things that he doesn’t even realise have the potential to expose him. Or how we say in simple words, that a thief will always leave a trace. These thieves left so many traces that we were amazed to find that just in three municipal cremation grounds of Amritsar district, 6017 unclaimed dead bodies were clearly recorded as the dead bodies of Sikh men between the ages of 15-35.” He said that corpses of women and elderly were also brought there.

“A mockery has been made of the law, of our community and those people who ask for nothing but a death certificate,” he said and promised that they would go to the Supreme Court and try every legal course they could to find justice. “This is not an issue of those families; this is the issue for a community, humanity’s issue,” he said.

Months after making this speech, Khalra was abducted from outside his house in September 1995. In the film, it is said that Khalra was abducted by the police and kept as a hostage while he was tortured. He was killed shortly after. In real life, his corpse has never been found.