Delhi Police, acting on a complaint lodged by Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL), raided premises in the Kalyanpur area of Lucknow and found illegal tapping and uploading of live content of popular Indian TV channels.
Over two dozen workers were caught red-handed using more than 50 DTH and cable TV set-top boxes to extract TV feeds, removing watermarks and uploading them on websites such as www.Desitvforum.net.
These websites are being accessed by millions of viewers outside India, and the pirates illegally earn thousands of dollars, causing huge amount of losses to broadcasters.
Police have arrested the alleged mastermind of this piracy racket, Md. Asif Siddiqui, and seized equipment such as computers and other accessories that were used to carry out the piracy.
Investigations in the matter are continuing and more such raids and arrests are likely to follow based on the interrogation of the accused.
According to ZEEL, this is the first time that an Internet pirate has been caught red-handed in India.
It took more than a year of investigation and digital evidence gathering by Zee’s in-house IT security team to collect evidence and identify people behind these websites, which were hosted in Sweden.