General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

CAT (2022 TV series)

CAT is an Indian Punjabi-language crime thriller television series created by Balwinder Singh Janjua for Netflix, in which a former police informant is forced back undercover to infiltrate a drug empire in Punjab in order to save his brother.¹ It premiered on December 9, 2022, with eight episodes, and stars Randeep Hooda, Suvinder Vicky, and Hasleen Kaur.²^•³ The Hindustan Times described it as Netflix's first Punjabi original.⁴

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	December 9, 2022, on Netflix²
Format	One season of eight episodes, roughly 44 minutes each³^•⁵
Language	Punjabi (original), with Hindi and other audio and subtitle options⁶
Creator	Balwinder Singh Janjua, showrunner, co-writer, and co-director¹
Lead cast	Randeep Hooda as Gurnam Singh, Suvinder Vicky as Sehtab Singh, Hasleen Kaur as Babita³^•⁷
Setting	Punjab across two timelines: the insurgency era of the 1980s and 1990s and the drug trade of the mid-2000s⁸
Rating	TV-MA on Netflix; rated 15 in the United Kingdom³^•⁹

Spoilers

Premise

The series follows Gurnam Singh (Randeep Hooda), who as a teenager lost his parents to a militant's bullets and was recruited as a "cat", the Punjab police term for an informant planted inside militant groups.¹⁰ After his mission he was given a new identity and settled into life as a motor mechanic raising his younger siblings.¹⁰ In 2006 his brother Sunny (Danish Sood) is arrested for drug trafficking, and Gurnam turns to the officer who once ran him, Sehtab Singh (Suvinder Vicky).¹¹ Sehtab agrees to help on one condition: Gurnam must go back under as a cat, this time inside the drug empire of the politician Madam Aulakh (Geeta Agrawal Sharma), whose operation moves cocaine from Pakistan into Punjab.¹¹^•¹²

The eight episodes are titled The Deal, The Invasion, The Imposter, The Takeover, The Crossroad, The Escape, The Deceit, and The Masterplan.¹³ Scroll's review notes that the season counts down to a series of stand-offs and a second season.¹²

Cast and characters

Randeep Hooda as Gurnam Singh, a mechanic and former police informant; Abhishant Rana plays the young Gurnam, known as Gary⁷
Suvinder Vicky as Sehtab Singh, the police officer who recruits Gurnam⁷
Hasleen Kaur as Babita Masih, a policewoman⁷
Geeta Agrawal Sharma as Madam Aulakh, a politician who runs the drug trade⁷
Dakssh Ajit Singh as Laadi, a former wrestler working for Aulakh¹²
Danish Sood as Sunny, Gurnam's brother⁷
Pramod Pathak as Chandan, Sehtab's assistant²⁰

The title and its historical meaning

The word "cat" in the title refers to a real counterinsurgency practice. According to an analysis by Prem Mahadevan in the SATP journal Faultlines, the term was most likely a colloquialism coined in 1986 by police officers in Amritsar district for pseudo-terrorist gangs formed to help locate real militant groups, and working as a "cat" became a source of livelihood for young men in the state.¹⁴ In the series, the protagonist's history as a cat during the 1990s insurgency is the link between the two timelines, and Sehtab Singh is the character who connects the militancy era to the later drug trade.¹²

Production

Creator. Balwinder Singh Janjua, then 41, had moved to Mumbai nearly two decades earlier from Kathiali village in the border district of Gurdaspur, and had previously written the screenplays for the films Saand Ki Aankh (2019) and Mubarakan.¹⁵^•¹⁶ He has said the subject was personal: the show touches on the insurgency of the 1980s and the drug menace around 2005, periods he grew up witnessing.⁸^•¹

Crew and companies. The series was produced by Movie Tunnel Productions in association with Jelly Bean Entertainment, with Janjua and Panchali Chakraverty as producers.¹ Janjua directed with Rupinder Chahal and Jimmy Singh, and wrote with Rupinder Chahal, Anil Rodhan, and Jimmy Singh; Netflix's 2022 announcement had listed Anutej Singh as a co-director.¹^•¹⁷ Arvind Krishna was the cinematographer.¹²

Filming and language. The series was shot over 90 days across the Majha region of Punjab, the border districts of Amritsar, Gurdaspur, and Tarn Taran, in about 80 locations.¹⁵^•¹⁸ Janjua engaged 80 to 90 actors and crew members from Punjab and insisted the story be told in Punjabi in authentic dialect, saying a Punjabi man shown speaking Hindi on screen would have taken the essence out of the story.¹⁵ Hooda, who had previously appeared on Netflix in the film Extraction, made his web series debut with CAT.¹^•¹⁹

Reception

The Times of India gave the season 3.5 out of 5, calling it "a riveting thriller that soars on the strength of strong performances" while noting that midway through it becomes overly indulgent and sluggish.¹⁶ Rediff's Deepa Gahlot praised its authenticity in language, locations, production design, and costumes, but found the plot took too many detours and carried too much violence.¹⁰ Scroll credited the cast, singling out Suvinder Vicky's performance as Sehtab as the show's anchor.¹² On Rotten Tomatoes the season held an 88% Tomatometer score from two reviews.¹³ Viewers gave it an IMDb rating of 8.1 from about 14,000 users.⁵

At the 2023 Hitlist OTT Awards the series won Best Supporting Actor, Male, for Suvinder Vicky, and was nominated for Best New Series and for Best Actor, Male, for Randeep Hooda; Hooda also received a News18 REEL Movie Award nomination for Best Actor and won Lead Actor of the Year at the Digital Reinvent Awards.²¹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026