Indian singer Daler Mehndi sentenced to two years of imprisonment

Indian singer Daler Mehndi has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment in a 2003 human trafficking case.

Daler has been taken into custody by the police and his application for release on probation has also been dismissed by court, complainant's lawyer Advocate Gurmeet Singh has said, reported ANI.

The singer's appeal against a two-year jail term was dismissed by a district court in Patiala today.

19 years ago, Daler and his brother Shamsher Singh were accused of taking money to illegally send people to US and Canada via the 'troupe' route, an Indian news portal reported. The first case was filed in September 2003 at the Patiala Sadar police station by a man named Bakshish Singh, alleging that the Mehndi brothers took two troupes to the US in 1998 and 1999, including 10 people for illegal migration, the report added.

"They took ₹ 13 lakh from me to send me to Canada," Bakshish Singh told ANI today. "Neither did they send me abroad, nor did they return my money. At that time they used to do this work of sending people abroad."

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Both the brothers were charged under Indian Penal Code's sections for human trafficking and conspiracy besides the Indian Passport Act. Daler and Shamsher were sentenced to two years of jail by a judicial magistrate's court in 2018, but were released on bail and filed appeals, which was denied today.

Now, Daler can approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the report further stated.

• India