Coimbatore: In a drive against circulation of pirated and pornographic CDs and DVDs, the City Police on Monday seized around 6,000 CDs/DVDs and arrested 15 persons, including two ex-convicts in the Coimbatore serial blasts case.

Following information about CD/DVD piracy being run as a cottage industry, the City Police Commissioner, P. Sivanandi and Deputy Commissioner of Police, P. Nagarajan (Law and Order) constituted four special teams led by Assistant Commissioners of P. Muthuraj (Central), L. Balaji Saravanan (South), K. Kumarasamy (West) and K. Gopalasamy (East).

The teams conducted raids at Kattoor, Peelamedu, Ramanathapuram, Variety Hall Road, Saravanampatty, Podanur and Rathinapuri police limits and found that Md. Shafi, an ex-convict in the Coimbatore serial blasts case, was possessing a computer with CD/DVD writer and pirating CDs using master prints and circulating them to shops and vendors, Mr. Sivanandi said.

Another ex-convict arrested during the drive included Mohammed Rafiq. In his premises at Ukkadam alone, the police seized around 2,000 CD/DVDs which include latest Tamil films and even the English 3D animation film. Mr. Sivanandi said that the drive would be sustained to completely weed out the CDs/DVDs and the antecedents of the arrested persons would be verified. In the event of previous record of offences of similar nature, steps would be taken to detain them under the Goondas Act, he said.

Efforts are also on to identify the remaining accused. The secured persons have been arrested under the non-bailable provisions of 51 and 63 of Copy Rights Act and are being remanded to judicial custody.

Courtesy - The Hindu