It’s a human story about two families that is neither political nor aimed at creating trouble, claims director

At a time when prominent Punjab militants of the 1980s such as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale have emerged on pop iconography for Sikh youth in India and abroad, comes a Punjabi film based on the lives of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassins, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh.

Kaum de Heere (Gems of the community) follows another landmark film, Punjab 1984, released earlier this year, about the dark days of terrorism. Though films have been made about the Punjab troubles, none is based on key figures of the movement as this one claims to be.

“All that I am doing is telling a human story about two families that is neither political nor aimed at creating trouble,” Jalandhar-based director Ravinder Ravi told The Hindu. “It has no heroes or villains.”

Last year the Akal Takht (Sikhism’s highest temporal seat) declared Bhindranwale a martyr of the community and his portrait has been put up in the Golden Temple complex, 30 years after his death.