Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi jailed for two years in 2003 human trafficking case

Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi has been sentenced to two-year jail term, for a 2003 human trafficking case, by a Patiala court on Thursday.

As per a report in Mirror Now, this was a review hearing in the case after a 2018 sentence in the same court where he was convicted. The court has upheld its previous sentence. Earlier also he was sentenced to two-year imprisonment and later let out on bail.

Daler was convicted under sections 406, 420, 120B, 465, 468, 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Indian Passport Act after an FIR at the Sadar Patiala police station back in 2003. 

In 2003, Daler, his now deceased brother Shamsher Singh, and two others were booked by Patiala police in a human trafficking case. After registering the first complaint, the police received 35 more similar complaints against the singer.

As per the Mirror Now report, the complaints stated that Daler had taken varying amounts of money in the range of around Rs 12 lakh from people in exchange for sending them to foreign countries, mostly Canada and the USA illegally. They had promised to send them abroad as a part of their dance troupes on his foreign shows.