Since the release of Imtiaz Ali’s film of the same name, the life of the late Punjabi artist Amar Singh Chamkila has come back into the spotlight. Even 36 years after his untimely death, Chamkila’s turbulent personal life is still a topic of discussion. He was well-known for his distinctive musical style. Amarjot’s older sister Jaswant Kaur recently discussed the complexity of their relationship with Chamkila in an interview with BBC Hindi. She disclosed that the singer had concealed his previous union from Amarjot’s relatives.
“There were no plans for Amarjot’s marriage. Chamkila didn’t tell us that he was already married. He told us that he is unmarried. My father had two conditions – that the boy should be a singer and unmarried. They finally tied the knot. After the birth of Amarjot and Chamkila’s son, we got to know about his first marriage,” she stated.
Renowned as the ‘Elvis Presley of Punjab,’ Chamkila garnered widespread public acclaim until his tragic demise in 1988 alongside Amarjot. Despite the incident, no arrests were made, and the case remained unresolved. “It has been 36 years but we still haven’t gotten any justice, no file was opened. We demand that the perpetrators be arrested and punished. We have lost our family members so they should be punished,” Jaswant stated.
Manku, Chamkila’s former secretary, revealed disturbing details about the assassination in a previous interview with Cine Punjabi. He detailed the horrific scene of Chamkila and Amarjot’s murder, saying, “One person next to me described what she saw, I was too scared to look out. She said, ‘There are three men, they’re doing the bhangra. They’ve kept a letter on Chamkila’s chest. I saw that letter later, I read it. It was drenched in blood. They left on scooters. I picked up the bodies myself.”
Parineeti Chopra and Diljit Dosanjh play the parts of the singers who were killed in the movie Amar Singh Chamkila.