Indian singer Daler Mehndi’s 2-year sentence in human trafficking case upheld by court

Indian singer Daler Mehndi’s two-year sentence in a 2003 human trafficking case has been upheld by a Patiala sessions court.

According to India TV, advocate Gurmeet Singh, the complaint’s lawyer, said that the ‘Tunak Tunak Tun’ singer has been taken into custody by the Indian police and his application for release or even probation has been dismissed by the court.

On Thursday, the court upheld the 2018 verdict by a trial court sentencing Mehndi to two years in prison in the trafficking case. The court had also convicted the singer in the case related to pigeon pelting in 2003.

Nineteen years earlier, Mehdi and his brother Shamsher Singh had been accused of sending people abroad by illegally disguising them as members of his troupe after charging exorbitant “passage money”. The brothers allegedly had taken two troupes in 1998 and 1999 during the course of which 10 people were taken to the US as group members and “dropped off” illegally.

In 2018, after 15 years, the lower court had sentenced the 54-year-old singer to two years imprisonment which has now, after four years, has been upheld by the session court as well.

Mehndi hasn’t commented on the verdict. As per the law, he has the option to challenge the verdict in the high court as well as the Supreme Court of India.