MUMBAI: The Indian Music Industry’s (IMI) anti-piracy team, along with the Censor Board of India, conducted a raid last week and sealed a piracy unit in West Delhi. Operating under the name of Dugobs Replication Company, the raid on the establishment lead to seizure of goods valued at over Rs 200 million (Rs 20 crore).

The piracy plant located at A–25/2 Naraina Industrial Area, Phase I, has been sealed and the establishment owner, Hiranand has been arrested. In total, over 90,000 CDs and 10,00,000 inlay cards have been recovered along with equipment including a stamping and molding unit, a printing unit, a packing unit, a plant handling computer system and over 19 stampers.

An FIR has been registered against the accused, Hiranand, at the Dabri police station, South West district, and he is currently in police remand while further investigations are ongoing.

Commenting on the raid, IMI deputy chief coordinator J.N. Saxena said, “This is an excellent piece of police work on information provided by IMI, and the police is now pursuing leads for facilitating further investigations. It is IMI’s constant endeavour to eradicate piracy, and together with judicial bodies and governmental agencies, we hope to one day seal all such nefarious establishments and bring to justice those who are guilty.”

IMI president V.J. Lazarus added, “IMI has been working for the last 10 years to control piracy and in the last four months itself, it has conducted raids on two of Delhi’s biggest CD plants – Deepak Arts CD plant and Dugobs Replication Company. We have reason to belive that this is a piracy network panning the whole of Northern India. We will fight for justice against these pirates till the very end.”

Deepak Arts CD plant was raided in July 2006 where goods worth over Rs 300 million (Rs 30 crore) were seized. The accused, Deepak Malhotra, was arrested and placed in judicial custody for more than 40 days.

IMI has constantly been demanding an optical disc law to be created in India to monitor CD plants. However, there has not been much success on this issue so far.

In Delhi, IPR (intellectual property right) is being flouted at every nook and corner in places like the Pallika Bazar, Chandni Chowk, Lala Lajpatrai market.