Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi on Thursday was sentenced to two years imprisonment in a 2003 human trafficking case, ANI reported.

Advocate Gurmeet Singh, representing the complainant in the case, said that Mehndi was taken into police custody following orders by a Patiala court.

“His application for release on probation was also dismissed by court,” the counsel added.

In 2003, the Punjabi singer and his brother Shamsher Singh had been accused of sending individuals abroad illegally – under the guise of being members of his troupe – by charging hefty “passage money”.

The two brothers had taken two troupes in 1998 and 1999, when 10 persons were taken to the United States and “dropped off” illegally.

The Patiala Police had registered a case against Mehndi and Singh on a complaint filed by a person called Bakshish Singh, followed by 35 more complaints about the fraud.

In 2006, the police filed discharge petitions in a local court, declaring that Mehndi was innocent, NDTV reported.

But a local court dismissed the discharge petitions and held that there was “sufficient evidence against him [Mehndi] on the judicial file and scope for further investigation”.

In March 2018, a Patiala court convicted Mehndi in the case and sentenced him to two years in jail. Soon after his conviction and sentencing, however, the court released him on a bail bond.

Recently, Mehndi filed an appeal against his two-year jail term. But a court of Additional Sessions Judge HS Grewal on Thursday dismissed it, PTI reported.

“Daler Mehndi and his brother Shamsher Mehndi took Rs 13 lakh from me to send me to Canada,” Bakshish Singh told the media on Thursday. “Neither did they send me abroad, nor did they return my money.”