E-Paper
4 accused of film piracy, arrested
An associate vice-president of a post-production company, a business development manager of Adlabs Films and four others were arrested on Tuesday for illegally distributing at least 11 Hindi films. HT Correspondent reports.
An associate vice-president of a post-production company, a business development manager of Adlabs Films and four others were arrested on Tuesday for illegally distributing at least 11 Hindi films.
Ashraf Husain (26), Firoz Khan (24) and Tanzim Syed (24) had been circulating the pirated films in the national and international market.
Karachi-based Asif (last name not given), who is said to be the brain behind the syndicate, is at large, the police said.
The police said Tanzim, an expert in computers, would pass on the film through the Internet to Asif who would then mail them all over the world.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria said the police had failed to break into the syndicate during the release of Dil Bole Hadippa. On Saturday, three men were arrested with the DVD of the unreleased film, What’s your Rashee?
During interrogation, the trio spilled the name of Durgadas Bhakta (44), a business development manager with the Adlabs in Goregaon.
Bhakta, who was arrested on Monday, confessed that he had connived with Rajesh Harkishan Chowdhary (34), an associate vice-president with UFO company in the syndicate.
The duo got Rs 1 lakh each from pirating the films.
The officials said the group has confessed to leaking out at least 11 films including Wanted, Fox, Shadow, Kisan and Aage Se Right... in the last six months.
The Crime Branch plans to convene a meeting with film producers to sensitise them about piracy.
An Adlabs spokesperson said theirs is the only facility in India to be accredited by the Feder-ation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). “Our security measures and FACT’s recognition place Adlabs as one of the most protected environments for handling motion pictures. The incident on What’s Your Rashee? is not attributable to us in any way,” he said.
Stay updated with all the Breaking News and Latest News from Mumbai. Click here for comprehensive coverage of top Cities including Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and more across India along with Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News.
