PATIALA,
A court in Punjab’s Patiala on Thursday upheld the two-year jail term of Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi in a 2003 human trafficking case. The singer was on bail as he had appealed against the trial court’s ruling in 2018.
The singer was taken into police custody after additional sessions judge HS Grewal dismissed his appeal against his jail term and plea for release on probation. He was taken to Rajindra Hospital in Patiala for medical examination before being sent to Patiala jail, where cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and Akali leader Bikram Majithia are also lodged.
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Daler’s lawyer Rakesh Thakur said they would file an appeal against the conviction orders in the Punjab and Haryana high court.
“Finally, justice has been delivered to the victims. There were 31 complainants in the case and the total amount cheated ran up to Rs 1.93 crore, including Rs 13 lakh paid by Bakshish Singh,” said Gurpreet Singh Bhasin, the counsel of the complainants.
Sadar Patiala police station had registered the case against Daler, his brother Shamsher Singh, Dhian Singh and Bulbul Mehta in 2003 following a complaint by Bakshish, a resident of Balbera village in Sanaur. The complainant alleged that Daler took Rs 13 lakh to send him to Canada but neither sent him abroad nor returned the amount. Later, 30 more complaints of fraud came up against the brothers, accusing them of taking “passage money” to help them migrate to other countries illegally but not doing so.
In March 2018, then Patiala judicial magistrate Nidhi Saini convicted Daler in the human trafficking case and acquitted Mehta, an employee of the singer’s firm, for lack of evidence. Shamsher and Dhian died during the trial.
Daler’s arrest was quite controversial as he was asked to strip by a few junior police officers during interrogation.
