Daler can keep passport; court rules

Patiala, Nov 10 (UNI) A local court today ruled that Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehndi, accused in a human trafficking case, can keep his passposrt with him for now.

Junior Magistrate Ist class PS Rai today rejected the plea of the complainant in the case that since the court had already framed charges, Daler being the main accused, should immediately surrender his passport before the trial court, just as all the other accused had done.

The defence counsel had pleaded that since Daler had been participating in the proceedings of the case regularly, surrendering of the passport was not required.

The court has fixed December 2 as the next date of hearing.

Police had registered a case under various sections of the IPC and the Indian Passport Act on September 19, 2003, at the Sadar police station here on the complaint of one Bakhshish Singh of Balbehra village against Daler and his brother Shamsher Mehndi.

In his complaint, Singh and 24 other complainants had blamed the singer and his brother of allegedly taking money from them on the promise of taking them in his troupe during foreign trips.

They alleged that the Mehndi brothers also failed to return their money to them and instead they were being threatened to keep quiet about the whole issue.

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