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Azhagiri booked 'for video piracy'

By Our Staff Reporter

MADURAI JUNE 16. M.K. Azhagiri, elder son of the former Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, now under judicial custody in connection with the murder of the former Minister, T. Kiruttinan, was booked under the Copyright Act following seizure of 4,037 pirated video compact discs (VCDs) from his video shop `Royal Videos' here today.

The raid conducted by the Video Piracy Cell follows two earlier raids carried out on Mr. Azhagiri's premises by the special team since Friday.

An employee of the shop, S. Damodaran, (38), was arrested under Section 52 (A) of Copyright Act and remanded. The search was led by the Inspector, Mohan, Video Piracy Cell, Tiruchi, who is also in charge of Madurai. A posse of police personnel have been deployed in the shop since Saturday, as Kanthi, Mr. Azhagiri's wife, refused to allow plainclothes men to search the shop along with the special team investigating the murder of Kiruttinan.

Mr. Azhagiri's advocate, A. Palanichamy, was present during the nearly three-hour-long search which started around 9.30 a.m. The seized VCDs were taken in over 20 carton boxes. The police seized DMK membership cards, film rolls, used SIM cards and videocassettes from his Sathya Sai Nagar residence on Friday. The following day, the team confiscated a few videocassettes and CDs after conducting searches in `Royal Videos', `Royal Castle' and `Gandhi Silks' housed on the Periyar Bus Stand shopping complex. Except for the `Royal Videos', the two other shops owned by Mr. Azhagiri's family and three other neighbouring CD shops on the same premises remained closed today. Later in the evening, the investigation officer, Mr. Mohan, filed a petition in Judicial Magistrate V court, seeking permission to produce Mr. Azhagiri, who is lodged in the Tiruchi central prison in the Kiruttinan murder case, in the video piracy case.

Rajathi calls on Azhagiri

Our Tiruchi Special Correspondent reports:

Rajathi Ammal, Mr. Karunanidhi's wife, along with her daughter, Kanimozhi, visited Mr. Azhagiri in the Tiruchi prison today. The former Minister, K. N. Nehru, accompanied them.

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