Punjab police have arrested popular singer, Daler Mehndi after a court in Punjab’s Patiala sentenced him to two years of imprisonment in a Human Trafficking case on Thursday. The court has directed an immediate arrest of Mehndi, following which he was arrested. Mehndi 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. The court has punished the Punjabi singer for two years against the appeal.
Patiala police had raided the offices of Daler Mehndi at Connaught Place in New Delhi and seized documents, including the case file of those who had paid the Mehndi brothers ‘passage money”. This case is also known as ‘kabootarbaazi’—meaning flying pigeons referring to numerous youth in Punjab trying to use illegal means to settle abroad
What was the case about
According to the reports In 2003, Mehndi, his 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 popular singer. As per the complaint he had taken varying amounts of money in the range of around 12 lakh rupees from people in exchange for sending them to foreign countries, mostly Canada and the USA illegally. They had promised people to send people abroad as a part of their dance troupes on his foreign shows, in exchange for large sums.
There are reports that Daler, on a trip to the US in the company of Karisma Kapoor and the latter’s mother Babita, had allegedly “dropped off” three girls in San Francisco. The girls had been identified as Priya, Meenu Behn, and Nimu, all from Gujarat. The brothers took another troupe to the US in October 1999 in the company of Juhi Chawla, Raveena Tandon and Javed Jaffri during which three boys were “dropped off” at New Jersey
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