Supercop Or Symbol Of State Excess? How Diljit Dosanjh’s 'Satluj' Has Reignited War Over KPS Gill’s Legacy

Last Updated:July 08, 2026, 22:50 IST

As the Director General of Punjab Police during the peak of the Khalistan insurgency, KPS Gill remains the most polarising figure in the state’s modern history

The OTT removal of the Diljit Dosanjh-starrer controversial film Satluj—originally titled Panjab ’95—has once again revived a fierce, decades-old debate over Kanwar Pal Singh Gill. As the Director General of Punjab Police during the peak of the Khalistan insurgency, KPS Gill remains the most polarising figure in the state’s modern history. To his supporters, he is the heroic “Supercop" who saved India from balkanisation and restored peace. To his detractors, he is the architect of a ruthless system of state-sponsored terror that legalised extrajudicial killings and crushed civil liberties.

‘The Saviour of the State’

Supporters of Gill argue that Punjab in the late 1980s and early 1990s was on the brink of total collapse. Militancy, heavily backed by cross-border logistical support, had brought ordinary life to a standstill, with targeted killings, extortion, and religious violence becoming daily occurrences.

Gill’s strategy, known as the “Gill Doctrine", transformed the demoralised Punjab Police into an aggressive counter-insurgency force. His defenders credit him with several decisive achievements:

• Restoring the Rule of Law: He successfully crushed a heavily armed insurgency when conventional political and military strategies had repeatedly failed.
• The Black Thunder Success: His surgical handling of Operation Black Thunder II in 1988 flushed out militants from the Golden Temple without damaging the holy shrine, contrasting sharply with the destruction of Operation Blue Star in 1984.
• Reviving Democracy: By neutralising the active militant leadership, Gill created the security environment necessary to hold the crucial 1992 state assembly elections, returning power to a civilian government.

The Human Cost and Enforced Disappearances

Conversely, the narrative driven by human rights groups and dramatised in Satluj paints a far darker picture of Gill’s tenure. Critics argue that peace was achieved not through law enforcement but through systemic state terror.

Under Gill’s leadership, the police force was granted near-total impunity, leading to widespread allegations of staged “encounters", torture, and secret mass cremations. The film focuses on the real-life crusade of bank manager-turned-activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who investigated municipal records to uncover thousands of unidentified bodies cremated secretly by security forces. Khalra himself was abducted and murdered by police personnel in 1995, an incident that remains a symbol of institutional overreach.

Scepticism and the Alternative View

While Satluj highlights state atrocities, independent analysts and security experts advise a degree of scepticism regarding both the cinematic portrayal and the raw data from that era.

Critics of the activist narrative point out that the often-cited figure of 25,000 extrajudicial killings lacks rigorous, independent statistical verification across the entire state. Furthermore, sceptics argue that the film risks presenting a simplified, one-sided view of history. By focusing solely on police excesses, such narratives frequently downplay the immense brutality of the Khalistani militants, who routinely massacred innocent civilians, assassinated political opponents, and terrorised the local population.

Ultimately, KPS Gill divides Punjab because both sides of his legacy coexist. For many, the peace enjoyed in Punjab today is inseparable from the brutal methods used to achieve it, leaving a complicated historical scar that cinema continues to agitate.

About the Author

Pathikrit Sen Gupta

Pathikrit Sen Gupta is a Senior Associate Editor with News18.com and likes to cut a long story short. He writes sporadically on Politics, Sports, Global Affairs, Space, Entertainment, And Food. He tra...Read More

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