In a crackdown on movie piracy, the Anti-Piracy Cell of the Indian state police arrested 16 persons from various parts of the state on Monday. Pirated copies of latest Malayalam films, porn clips, computers, hard disks, pen drives and memory cards used to record the movies were seized from the accused persons, police said.The drive was led by Anti-Piracy Cell SP B K Prasanth. Three persons - Jalaudeen, owner of Video Care of Sasthamkotta, Vinod Kumar of Devoos shop at Punalur and Synulabdeen of city mobiles at Kottarakkara were arrested from Kollam district.

The four arrested from Thrissur include Abdul Rahim and Ramesh of Dreams mobiles, Noufal of Dubai video shop at Eranaloor, Naufal of Amigos shop at Chiranalloor and Sai digital shop owner Shylesh.
The police arrested two persons in Ernakulam - Peelu mobile shop owner Babu at Penta Menaka and Town Lotus electronics shop owner Vinod while Rhythm shop owner Harris and CD centre shop owner Rakesh were arrested in Alappuzha district.

In Kottayam district, Aneeshkumar, a roadside vendor at Kalareekkal Bazaar, was arrested while Zakeer Hussain of Star Mobile shop, Bineesh of Kalpaka Mobile shop, Anshad of Sana Mobiles, Shameer Ali and Priyadarshan of Appoos Mobiles were arrested in Palakkad district.

“Most of the shops are located near educational institutions. Apart from pirated copies of Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English movies, porn videos were seized from these shops,” said Prasanth.
Anti-Piracy Cell Deputy Superintendent P M Iqbal, detective inspector Subhash Chandrababu, detective sub-inspectors Jimstal, Ratheesh and Rupesh Kumar J R and civil police officers Sterlin Raj, Benny, Ajayan, Subeesh and Saji were part of the team that conducted the raids.