KOCHI: The police on Friday arrested two persons from Bengaluru for creating and circulating pirated versions of Malayalam movie ‘Ajayante Randam Moshanam’ (ARM) starring Tovino Thomas in the lead.
The arrested persons are Praveen Kumar, 30, and Kumareshan, 30, both from Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu. They are members of the Tamilrockers group, which is infamous for pirating Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada films.
The Kochi Cyber Police, which registered a case and launched a probe on complaint of ARM director Jithin Laal last month, found that the accused had recorded the movie from SRK Mirage theatre in Coimbatore.
“We managed to trace the mobile phones of the accused. Their location was found to be Bengaluru. Our team went there on Wednesday,” said a police officer.
The police traced the tower location of the phones and found that the duo was at Gopalan Mall in Bengaluru. They were recording the newly-released movie ‘Vettaiyan’ staring Rajinikanth, said the officer.
“We intercepted them while they were coming out of the theatre. They recorded new movies from theatres using sophisticated cameras, and uploaded them to the website (onetamilmv). From their, the movies were circulated via the Telegram app. The several advertisements they received on their websites was their primary source of income,” said the officer.
The duo’s arrest was recorded and they were shifted to Kochi. The police will produce them in court on Saturday, and will seek their custody for detailed interrogation. The police are trying to track the other members of the group.