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Malayalam movie pirates busted

The Cochin police have busted an international gang engaged in making pirated videocassettes of new Malayalam movies and supplying them worldwide, Police Commissioner Arun Kumar Sinha announced at a press conference on Friday. Three persons were arrested.

Biju (28) and Usman (35) were employees of film distributors. Shamsuddin (27), a resident of Edathala, Aluva, near Cochin, who was arrested last week, is a technician.

Sinha said the gang had produced cassettes of 50 out of the 58 films released last year. Pirated cassettes of five films, three sophisticated mini-cameras and a projector were seized.

The first arrest was made on February 19, after a distributor reported the theft of a new cassette of Hey Ram! from his own office.

Film producers, who were also present, said the gang had been supplying copies of pirated films in foreign countries, particularly in the Gulf, the United States, Germany and England. While Kerala had been losing millions of rupees in revenue, the gang had been making a profit of at least Rs 1 million per film.

The gang either stole prints of new films from distributors' offices with the connivance of the staff or directly filmed them at theatres during second shows. These were then sent outside Kerala, where copies were made and distributed.

Shamsuddin was arrested from Kasaragod last week and produced before reporters. He confessed to getting Rs 10,000 for the first copy supplied to the gang. Shamsuddin had, Sinha said, reproduced cassettes of 35 of the 58 Malayalam films released last year.

The arrests might help trace the gang's links outside the state, Sinha said. The kingpin, operating from outside Kerala, is yet to be arrested.

UNI

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