NEW DELHI: After online leak of Bollywood movie Udta Punjab, another upcoming film Great Grand Masti was found to be leaked online in the national capital on Wednesday. In a major crackdown, crime branch unit of Delhi police conducted raids at various markets across Delhi and arrested nine shopkeepers for the illegal trade.
A total of 355 pirated DVDs of the movie, eight computers and laptops contained copies of some recently leaked movies, pornographic movies and clips, and other incriminating materials were seized from them.
Nine cases under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code and Copy Right Act were registered against the arrested persons. Raids were conducted at Lajpat Rai Market in Chandni Chowk and other markets in Malviya Nagar, Kotla Mubarakpur, Tughlaqabad Extension, and Seemapuri.
Interrogation of the arrested persons revealed that they had been uploading unreleased movies from certain websites and copying them in their computers and laptops. Further, they used to sell pirated copies of such films to their customers through CDs and pendrives in lieu of money, ranging between Rs 10 to Rs 50 for each copy, said a senior police officer.
Joint Commissioner of Police Ravindra Yadav said that inputs were received that some shopkeepers were involved in selling soft copies of Bollywood movies before their official release, porn movies and obscene MMSes.
“Owing to recent leakages of latest movie such as Udta Punjab and on inputs provided by Balalji Telefilms production home, raids were conducted across Delhi to crackdown on such illegal activities. Sources were deployed and decoy customers were sent in different parts of Delhi to develop the information,” said Yadav.
Two raids were conducted at Lajpat Rai market were two traders were found selling pirated movies. Karan Kumar, running a shop in the name of Babbu Electronics, agreed to provide soft copy of ‘Great Grand Masti’, to be released on July 22, blue films and obscene MMSs in pen drive at the cost of 50 rupees each to the police official sent as decoy customer.
“Subsequently, he was arrested and pirated versions of several recently released Bollywood movies like Raman Raghav, Teen, Junooniat, Udta Punjab, Sarabjit, Houseful-3 and Veerappan were found stored in his laptop that also contained over 500 other bollywood, Hollywood, and South India movies,” said Yadav.
“He has confessed to have sold pirated copies of Udta Punjab to several persons before its official release,” Yadav added.
The other arrested persons have been identified as Vishal from Lajpat Rai Market, Amit Gupta, Vikram Kumar, and Devender Basoya from Kotla Mubarakpur, Ghanshyam Kumar from Malviya Nagar market, Nafees Ahmed and Deepak from Tughlaqabad Extension and Rahul from Seemapuri.
The police is now probing the source from the online leak took place and people behind the entire conspiracy.