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Daler’s plea turned down again
Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, October 20
The Delhi High Court again turned down the plea of Punjabi pop star Daler Mehndi today for protection against arrest in the human trafficking case till the decision on his anticipatory bail plea and deferred the hearing till tomorrow on it.

During a brief hearing when Mehndi’s counsel urged the court to grant his client protection against arrest till the bail petition was decided, Mr Justice S.K. Agrawal said: “There is no order in this regard.”

The court sought the Hindi version of the FIR lodged in Punjabi with the Patiala Sadar police station after Punjab’s Additional Advocate-General (AAG) alleged that Mehndi had deliberately taken out material facts from the copy of the FIR, annexed by him with his bail petition.

“In the FIR it has been alleged by the complainant that he paid Rs 1 lakh directly to Daler Mehndi but the copy they have filed with the petition says that the money was paid to Shamsher Singh (his brother),” he said.

An affidavit, filed by the Punjab police said: “The petitioner (Mehndi) has not approached the court with clean hands. The translation of the FIR as annexed to the petition, has been manipulated and there are willful and intentional omissions made to give an impression to this court that he has no major role in the offence.”

Mehndi had sought bail on the ground that he was not involved in the case and the FIR also did not show that the money was directly paid to him by Bakshish Singh who had lodged a complaint with the police alleging that he had paid Rs 12 lakh to the accused when they demanded it from him on the promise that they would provide him visa to facilitate his immigration to Canada. Besides the Mehndi brothers, Tejinder Singh, Harchand Singh and Surinder Singh are the others named in the FIR.

The affidavit said human trafficking had emerged as a multi-crore business in Punjab and investigation had “revealed involvement” of Mehndi in the case. The police informed the court that Mehndi’s wife Daljit Kaur and his brother’s wife Balwinder Kaur had sought anticipatory bail.

Panchhi’s brother held, remanded
Our Correspondent

Jalandhar, October 20
In the ongoing probe into Sukhwinder Panchhi case today two more complainants told the police that after failing to ensure immigration of their wards to a western country under the garb of a cultural troupe, the singer had issued cheques worth more than Rs 1 lakh to each of them to return the money. The cheques had bounced due to insufficient funds in his account.

Meanwhile, Jagtar Singh, a brother of Panchhi and co-accused in the human trafficking case, was arrested by the police from Sarinh village near here late last night, who was remanded into police custody for two days by a local court this afternoon. The two complainants were scheduled to formally submit their complaints to the police tomorrow and more cases might be registered against Panchhi for duping innocent youth of lakhs of rupees on the pretext of sending them abroad under the garb of cultural exchange programmes.

Panchhi had opened an account with the Link Road branch of State Bank of India (SBI) in February 2000 by depositing only Rs 500. Interestingly, he had managed to secure a cheque book and cheques worth more than Rs 11 lakh were issued to around 20 persons, during the past three years, which later bounced due to insufficient funds.

“We have secured details of his bank account with the SBI and he had issued around 20 cheques worth Rs 11 lakh to those whom he had failed to take abroad even as his balance never exceeded Rs 500 during the past three years. We received two telephone calls this afternoon from those, who had been ditched following failure of cheques, which were issued to cover his misdeeds”, a senior police official said, adding that more cases would be registered against Panchhi in human trafficking racket.

The balance in account of Panchhi’s wife Rajinder Rubi at Ladowali road branch of Punjab National Bank was Rs 60 while that of Panchhi was Rs 63 in the same bank. “We are trying to obtain details of these bank accounts from the authorities concerned to ascertain the identity of those, who have been issued cheques to stop them from complaining to the police for cheating and fraud”, the police said.

Meanwhile, the police has arrested co-accused and a brother of Panchhi, Jagtar Singh from Sarinh village near here late last night even as Rubi was still at large. “Panchhi, during interrogation, has revealed that his brother Jagtar Singh used to settle deals on his own and he is being falsely implicated in the case”, sources said, adding that Jagtar had been working as an agent of the singer for about seven years.

Panchhi, along with Jagtar Singh, was produced in the court of Mr Kuldeep Singh amid tight security measures this afternoon. After listening to the arguments of both the public prosecutor and the defence counsel, the judicial officer remanded both of them into police custody for two days. The police was directed to produce the accused in the court on October 22.