Pirated VCDs of <i>Fiza</i> seized from Pakistani

Pirated VCDs of Fiza seized from Pakistani
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 10: In the biggest haul of pirated VCDs, police caught a Pakistani man smuggling 8,000 VCDs of Fiza, the Hrithik Roshan starrer, at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

The haul is significant because it included two `stampers' (a master CD) and 8,000 inlay cards, containing the description of the film. Police said with one stamper over 50,000 VCDs could have been recorded and distributed.

Mohammed Hasan, 42, was travelling from Karachi to Kathmandu and was a transit passenger at the Delhi airport. He had arrived in India on Saturday by flight PK290. Hasan was sitting in the transit lounge waiting to board the plane at 11 in the morning when police arrested him. Police found Fiza VCDs and inlay cards in the four bags he was carrying. The haul is estimated to be over Rs 35 lakh.

On interrogation, according to police, Hasan confessed he had travelled to Kathmandu 20 times but this was the first time he had attempted to smuggle VCDs. He was working as a courier.

``All the CDs are made in Pakistan. We don't have copyright laws in our country,'' said Hasan. ``I don't have even have a visa. I was just boarding the plane,'' he added. He said that he took clothes and auto parts to Kathmandu.

According to police, Karachi is a big centre for the manufacture of pirated CDs. Once the VCDs reach Kathmandu, the central distributing area, they are packed and then brought back into India by road and flown to the Middle East and countries like the UK, US, Malayasia and Singapore. The CDs were manufactured in Sadar CD centre and Rambo centre, Sadar Road, Karachi.

The tip-off was given by Satish Kapoor of Prime Protection PVT LTD, a private investigator. ``This is all part of a big gang. Vinod, a kingpin, involved in CD piracy is involved in it. He would have sent the CDs by road through Gorakhpur and Delhi,'' he said.

An FIR has been filed against Hasan and he has been charged under the Copyright Act.

The movie has been running to full houses in all theatres since it was released Friday. The movie is the much-awaited second release of teenage heartthrob Hrithik Roshan. According to the film's distributors, if the VCDs had reached the market, film revenues would have dropped sharply.