Human trafficking case: Patiala court upholds two-year jail term to singer Daler Mehndi

CHANDIGARH:  Popular Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi was on Thursday arrested after a Patiala court upheld a sentence of two years in jail in a 19-year-old case of human trafficking. Mehndi was sent to the Patiala Central Jail where cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and former minister and senior SAD leader Bikram Majitha are lodged.

His lawyer L M Gulati said, “We will immediately move a higher court with an appeal.” A trial court had in 2018 held Mehndi and his sibling Shamsher Singh guilty of illegally sending people abroad in the guise of members of his troupe, charging hefty sums for human smuggling, and sentenced them to two years in jail. Shamsher Singh passed away in 2017.

Mehndi was granted bail and later filed an appeal in the sessions court. Additional District and Sessions Judge H S Grewal on Thursday held Mehndi guilty under Section 420 (cheating) and 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code. A case was registered against the brothers on September 19, 2003, by the Sadar police station in Patiala on a complaint filed by one Bakshish Singh and 35 others over alleged fraud.

Singh claimed he had paid the singer Rs 12 lakh for smuggling him to Canada but the latter failed to honour the deal. Daler had taken two troupes in 1998 and 1999 during which 10 people were taken to the US as group members and ‘dropped off ’ illegally. On a trip to the US in 1998 with a then-leading Bollywood actor, Mehndi allegedly ‘dropped off ’ three girls in San Francisco.

A year later on another trip with three other actors, three boys were ‘dropped off ’ in New Jersey. In 2006, the police filed two discharge petitions claiming Mehndi was innocent but the trial court rejected them saying there was “sufficient evidence against him on the judicial file and there was scope for further investigation”.