Why is Daler Mehendi sentenced to jail? 2003 human trafficking case explained

A Patiala court on Thursday announced a two-year-jail term for Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi in a 19-year-old human trafficking case. The case dates back to 2003 and a total of 31 cases have been filed against Daler Mehndi and his brother Shamsher Singh.

Daler Mehndi and his brother Shamsher Singh have been accused of illegally sending people abroad disguised as members of his troupe by charging hefty passage money. 

This was a review hearing in the case after a 2018 sentence in the same court, where he was convicted in a 2003 human trafficking case. Earlier too, he was sentenced to two years in jail and was later let out on bail.

The court of Judicial Magistrate First Class held both the brothers guilty and sentenced them to two years in jail in 2018, the popular singer and his brother were granted bail and later they filed an appeal in the sessions court.

In today's review hearing, the court of Additional Sessions Judge HS Grewal dismissed the bail plea. Mehndi was taken into custody followed by the court order.  

As per the 2003 FIR at Sadar police station filed by Bakshish Singh on September 19, 2003, the Mehndi brothers are accused of taking two troupes in 1998 and 1999, where 10 people were taken to the US as group members and were “dropped off” illegally.

The police had moved two petitions stating that Daler was not required in the case as he had nothing to do with the case.

Daler allegedly dropped off three girls illegally in San Francisco during his trip to the US with Karishma Kapoor and her mother Babita. The girls had been identified as Priya, Meenu Behn and Nimu, all from Gujarat.

In October 1999, Mehendi's brother accompanied another troupe to the US with Juhi Chawla, Raveena Tandon and Javed Jaffri during which three boys illegally immigrated to New Jersey.

After receiving the complaint of Bakshish, 35 more complaints came up levelling charges of fraud against the brothers. The complainants had alleged that the brothers had taken “passage money” from them to help them migrate to the US “illegally”, but had failed to do so.

The Patiala police had raided Daer Mehendi's Delhi office at Connaught Place and seised documents, including the case file of those who had paid the Mehndi brothers ‘passage money”.

The Mehendi brothers are prosecuted by the court on the basis of evidence against him on the judicial file and scope for further investigation, in spite of Patiala police filing two discharge petitions in 2016 portraying Mehndi as innocent. 

Read: BREAKING: Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi sentenced to 2 years in jail in human trafficking case