00:00You want to finish terrorism, you have to be ruthless about it.
00:04What have disappearances of these Punjabi men got to do with the super cop KPS Gill and Satluj the movie?
00:10Yes, we have eliminated terrorism, but that doesn't make me feel like top dog.
00:14Just like in the Diljeet Tusan starer Satluj, let's go back in time.
00:19First to the Punjab of 1984, a very different time.
00:22Indira Gandhi had just been assassinated and there was a rise of militancy in Punjab seeking an independent Khalistan.
00:28Thousands of people, including Sikhs, Hindus, security personnel and public officials were killed.
00:33And around at the same time, thousands of families say relatives were picked up by security forces and never returned.
00:39Human rights groups accused sections of the Punjab police of fake encounters, custodial torture, enforced disappearances and illegal cremations during
00:47the crackdown.
00:48Now fast forward 10 years to the Punjab of 1995, the year the story in Satluj played out.
00:54Meet Jasvan Singh Khalra. He's a bank employee turned human rights activist.
00:58He checks municipal cremation records and alleges thousands of unidentified bodies had been secretly cremated as unclaimed.
01:05His findings shocked the world and led to investigations.
01:08Most of those investigations pointed to a period when KPS Gill was heading the Punjab police.
01:12Gill led the Punjab police campaign against Khalistani militant groups.
01:16Under his leadership, the state police had significantly weakened the insurgency.
01:20And by around 1993 to 1995, militant violence had largely subsided.
01:24Restoring law and order after years of bombings and assassinations, dismantling militant networks, making it possible for elections and normal
01:31life to resume in Punjab.
01:33There is no possibility of militancy coming back to Punjab.
01:38These feats earned the Gilda title of Super Cop.
01:41You want to finish terrorism, you have to be ruthless about it.
01:45But there was a problem.
01:46In 1995, as Khalra and his startling allegations were making waves in India and abroad, the activist disappeared.
01:53The CBI later concluded that Punjab police personnel had abducted and murdered him.
01:58Several officers were convicted.
02:00Was Gill personally convicted?
02:01Gill was not convicted in connection with the disappearances or illegal cremations that became the subject of later investigations.
02:08Are there any regrets?
02:10No, I have no regrets.
02:11I think we've all done a good job.
02:14However, he was convicted in a separate criminal case involving sexual harassment.
02:18In 1988, senior IS officer Rupan Diyal Bajaj accused Gill of outraging her modesty by allegedly slapping her on the
02:24posterior at a party.
02:26He at that time was a DGP and he molested my mom who was an IS officer.
02:30So she filed a case against him.
02:32Gill remains a deeply polarizing figure.
02:34For many police officers and families affected by militant violence,
02:37he is remembered as the officer who ended one of India's deadliest insurgencies.
02:42For many human rights activists and families of the disappeared,
02:45his tenure symbolizes a period of alleged impunity and state excesses.
