NAGPUR, July 7: The Sitabuldi police on Sunday evening, raided the master control room of a local cable operator, Siti Cable, in the Civil Lines area here, for allegedly screening a pirated video cassette.

Police seized a broken Hindi movie video cassette from the backyard of the Siti Cable office, allegedly thrown by the employees to thwart the raid. Earlier, they locked the collapsible gate of the Siti Cable office to prevent police from entering the premises.

The incident was witnessed by policemen, India Media Prevention of Copyright Theft (IMPCT) authorities and this reporter.

The IMPCT authorities had been suspecting copyright theft by Siti Cable and screening of Hindi movies on their cable network. On Sunday afternoon, IMPCT authorities suspected that Siti Cable was screening two movies, `Mohra' and `Vishwatma' on the network without copyrights. They immediately lodged a complaint with the Sitabuldi police. The police on reaching the spot, found the collapsible gate of the office locked. The Sitabuldi police had conducted a similar raid a few days ago at the same office, but found the gates locked.

The police team consisting of three sub-inspectors and an assistant police inspector, laid siege at the Siti Cable office since they had confirmed that the movie was still on. Later, an employee of the Siti Cable reportedly threw a mutilated video cassette from the first-floor office in the backyard. Policemen immediately seized the cassette after a panchnama. Meanwhile, other associates of Siti Cable arrived and attempted to deter the police from performing the panchnama on the pretext that they possessed documents allowing them to screen video cassettes. Later on, the police left the spot.

Till late in the evening, the police had not booked Siti Cable authorities under the Copyright Act. A police official while talking to The Indian Express said that mere seizure of a video cassette meant a copyright theft. Siti Cable, Nagpur, chief Anita Patel had alleged that Shailendra Choudhary of the IMPCT was not allowing her to conduct her cable business peacefully. She denied that her employees had thrown the video cassette as claimed by IMPCT authorities. Since the police had scaled the pipes and entered the balcony at the rear of the office, no one from inside could have thrown anything, she said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.