Pirated editions of Harry Potter, bestselling authors seized

BANGALORE: Police here have unearthed a major racket involved in pirated book printing and distribution, with a big haul of several international bestsellers, including J K Rowling's Harry Potter, valued at Rs 50 lakh.

Inayath, the suspected kingpin of the racket, who was running the operation for the last few years, has been arrested and a search is on for Babu, his accomplice, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Alok Kumar told.

The raid on a printing press and an adjacent godown yielded books of internationally renowned authors like Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Sidney Sheldon, Arundathiand those published by Harvard Business School, among others, the DSP said.

Even bestsellers authored by out-going President A P J Abdul Kalam were pirated, Kumar said, adding that the gang had mastered the art of reproducing the cover of the originally published editions "with immaculate precision".

The gang, which was printing these books in violation of the Copyright act, had been distributing it in Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata and even abroad.

It was also engaged in printing pornographic books, including 'Human Digest', a magazine published from abroad, Kumar added.