19 people arrested in Bangladesh for video piracy

[Len]

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in Comilla arrested 19 people from the town on Tuesday and seized pirated pornograhic videos and equipment for copying discs from them.

The arrestees are Md Sumon, Md Mohiuddin Sohag, Sujon Chandra Das, Nayan Datta, Md Tarek, Md Kamrul Islam, Md Saiful Islam Misu, Jony Saha, Md Abdur Rahim, Md Roman, Sree Ajit Kumar Dey, Shyamol Chandra Karmokar, Surjo Chakraborty, Md Rafat, Md Khokon Mahmud, Saurav Das, Md Ali Riad, Mahmud Hasan Choton and Arjun Debnath.

In a press briefing yesterday, Comilla Camp Rab-11 Commander Major Arifur Rahman said an anti-piracy task force, led by its member MR Alam Chowdhury and assisted by Rab, conducted a drive and arrested 19 people and seized 20 monitors, 20 CPUs, one laptop and hard disk, six cables and 2,495 pirated CDs from Comilla Town Hall Super Market.

The arrestees told Rab that they secretly copy newly released movies from different cinema halls. They also collect new music videos from music studios and advertisement firms, they said, adding that they mix pornographic movies with those videos and sell those. They also collect photographs of Bangladeshi stars and make CD covers through Photoshop editing.

Major Arif said the drive will continue, adding that investigation is going on in different markets of the district headquarters and upazilas.