Patiala, February 8
Pop star Daler Mehndi will now be asked to record his statement by Patiala Senior Superintendent of Police A.S. Rai regarding the alleged incident in which he was asked to pull down his trousers for identification purposes by members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which had called him for questioning in the human trafficking case registered against him.
Daler has already recorded his statement before outgoing Inspector-General of Police Shashi Kant in which he has alleged that he was coerced into removing his trousers after police officials refused to accept the identification marks put forward by him to complete the identification formalities.
The SSP said he was holding a detailed inquiry into the entire issue and would ask Daler to record his statement in the case before him also. He said he would also personally record the statements of all police officers of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) before deciding on the action to be taken on anyone in the case.
Asked about the alleged stagemanaged protest against Daler when he came to the Sadar police station to join investigations in the case, the SSP said it seemed the DIG was inquiring into this incident. Range DIG Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota, however, said as the alleged stagemanaged protest incident was linked with the incident regarding trouser removal, the SSP would only investigate the case.
Mr Sahota disclosed that he would serve a notice on Daler soon, asking him to record his statement regarding bribery demands made by a former member of the Patiala police. The DIG said the pop star had asked for time till February 15 to record his statement in the case. He said if the pop star still failed to turn up to record his statement after he was served a notice in this regard, a case would be filed. The DIG is investigating charges that former DSP Rajinderpal Singh Anand had demanded Rs 1.50 crore from Daler to ensure he was not affected by the charges of human trafficking levelled against him and his brother.
Meanwhile, Daler’s lawyer Brijinder Singh Sodhi when questioned on the issue said the pop star also wanted a detailed inquiry into the case and was not interested in taking action against junior police officials. He said Daler felt there was a deep-rooted conspiracy under which Daler had been first framed in the case and then humiliated by organising a stage managed protest against him and making him to remove his trousers. Mr Sodhi said Daler was on his part ready to cooperate with the district police to unmask the conspiracy.
