HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad police on Tuesday busted a nation-wide movie piracy racket operating from Patna in Bihar and arrested six persons in connection with making pirated copy of Baahubali-2.
The gang members also attempted to extort money from the movie producers in return of not circulating the pirated copy on internet.
The accused, identified as Rahul Mehta (26), Jitender Kumar Mehta (37), Tauffiq (27) and Mohammed Alli (39) of New Delhi, along with Divakar Kumar, a movie hall owner from Begu Sarai and his assistant Chandan, were arrested, while one Ankit Kumar alias Monu of Begu Sarai, is still at large.
On April 29, Devineni Prasad, partner of Arka Media Works Entertainment Ltd, the production house of Baahubali, lodged a complaint stating that on the first day of the film’s release, a pirated HD (high-definition) quality version of the film was copied by unknown persons. They later called Prasad demanding `15 lakh in return of not uploading the movie on internet.
One of the accused, Rahul, called Prasad and sent him a grab of the video to support his claims. Rahul, a few days later, visited the officer of Arka Media and showed the video clips to producers and demanded the money. However, the cops nabbed him.
Old track record
Investigation revealed that Ankit Kumar, a former software engineer, is the main accused in the piracy. With the knowledge of satellite broadcasting of movies, he approached Divakar to execute the plan by transmitting the movie to a computer using a decrypting key that enables transmission, instead of projecting it in the theatre.