SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali 2 recently became the target of a piracy gang and the group members tried to blackmail film’s producer Karan Johar and others. But the police have busted the Delhi-based inter-state movie piracy gang with the arrest of six persons, including Divakar Kumar, owner of Veena Cinema Hall at Tivhra in Begusarai. A theatre in Begusarai district of Bihar was used to make a high-definition copy of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, and the same was used by a piracy gang to extort money from producers of the blockbuster, the Hyderabad police said.
Others who have been arrested are Rahul Mehta, Jitender Kumar Mehta, Taufiq, Md Ali, all from Delhi and Chandan from Bihar. Another accused from Bihar, Monu, is missing and on the run. Interestingly, Jitender and Toufiq were also arrested in 2015 for making a pirated copy of Baahubali: The Beginning, the first movie in the successful franchise.
While Rahul Mehta, who was in Hyderabad to extort money from the Baahubali production banner Arka Mediaworks Entertainment Ltd, was arrested, others were nabbed in Delhi and Bihar and brought to Hyderabad on a transit warrant.
A still from Baahubali 2 (Courtesy: YouTube/Baahubali Movie)
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Crime Station) Avinash Mohanty, Arka representative Prasad Devineni had lodged a complaint on April 29 that they received a call from someone posing as film anti-piracy activist, demanding Rs 15 lakh. The caller told the firm that he has a pirated copy and warned that if the money was not paid, he would upload it on the internet.
The police, with the help of experts, found that the film was copied from a theatre in Begusarai, breaching satellite technology security. While Arka representatives continued dialogue with Rahul Mehta by inviting him to Hyderabad, the police continued their probe and arrested the theatre owner. However, Monu, a former employee of one of the satellite broadcasters of the movie who copied the movie, managed to escape. The police arrested Rahul in Hyderabad and on the basis of his information nabbed other members of the gang in Delhi.
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