Popular Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi on Thursday was arrested as he was handed a two-year jail term by the Patiala district court in an 18-year-old human trafficking case.
The singer was on bail as he had appealed against the trial court order. He was previously imprisoned for two years in this case. Mehndi challenged this sentence in the session’s court of Patiala. There, the sentence was upheld. After this, he was arrested by the Patiala police and been sent to Patiala Central Jail.
On the complaint of Bakshish Singh, a resident of village Balveda, the police of Sadar Patiala police station filed a case of cheating of lakhs against Daler Mehndi, his brother Shamsher Singh, Dhyan Singh, and Bulbul Mehta on the pretext of sending him abroad. Bakshish Singh had complained that Daler Mehndi had taken Rs 13 lakh from him in the name of sending him abroad, but later neither sent him abroad nor returned his money.
Daler Mehndi and his brother Shamsher Singh had been accused of illegally sending people abroad disguised as members of his troupe by charging hefty “passage money”. In 2018, the court of Judicial Magistrate First Class held both the brothers guilty and sentenced them to two years in jail, following which they were granted bail and later filed an appeal in the session’s court.