Team News Riveting
Patiala, September 15
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday suspended the jail term of Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi, who was convicted by a Patiala court in a human trafficking case.
The single bench of Justice G S Gill suspended the sentence of Mehndi who was sentenced to two years in jail in the 2003 case. Mehndi had moved the high court in July after the Patiala court upheld his two-year sentence, awarded in March 2018 by the trial court.
The singer had filed a revision petition before the high court against his conviction after the court of additional sessions judge in Patiala on July 14 had dismissed his appeal against the 2018 order. He was then sent to the Patiala jail.
The Patiala police had booked Mehndi and his brother Shamsher on a complaint filed by one Bakshish Singh. Shamsher died in 2017. Around 35 more complaints were filed against the duo. The complainants had alleged that had taken ‘passage money’ from them to help them migrate to the United States illegally, but failed to do so.
It was also alleged that the Mehndi brothers took two groups in 1998 and 1999 during the course of which 10 persons were taken to the U.S. as group members and “dropped off” illegally. Mehndi, on a trip to the U.S. in the company of an actress, allegedly “dropped off” three girls in San Francisco.
The brothers had taken a troupe to the U.S. in October, 1999, in the company of some other actors, during which three boys were “dropped off” in New Jersey, police had said.
