Singer taken into custody in an over two-decade-old human trafficking case in Punjab
More than two decades after he was accused of illegally sending abroad people by disguising them as members of his “troupe”, popular Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi’s appeal against his two-year jail sentence was dismissed by a Patiala local court on Thursday.
The Court of Additional District and Sessions Judge HS Grewal upheld Mehndi’s two-year jail sentence in a 2003 human trafficking case, following which he was taken into custody. He is likely to be sent to Patiala jail, where cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and former Minister Bikram Majithia are also lodged. The lower court in 2018 had held Mehndi guilty under Section 420 (cheating) and 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. The trial court had sentenced him to two-years imprisonment and also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000. As of now, he was out on bail as he had appealed against the trial court’s decision.
In the complaints almost 20 years back, Daler Mehndi and his brother Shamsher Singh were accused of collecting “passage money” to take people abroad, mainly to the US and Canada, via the “troupe” route. Though they took some people along with them, there were others who alleged that they took money but did not keep their promise.
In September 2003, a case was registered at Patiala by one Bakshish Singh. He alleged that the brother-duo took two troupes to the US in 1998 and 1999, during the course of which 10 people were taken to the US as group members and were “dropped off” illegally.