PAGE 1 ANCHOR 3 top cops, CM star in Kerala's piracy musical RAJEEV PI
Posted online: Saturday, December 09, 2006 at 0000 hrs One IG raids studio run by another's wife, DGP removes him, CM steps in KOCHI, DECEMBER 8 : This could have been from a proper B-grade flick: An IG of police heading the state anti-piracy cell helps the daughter of an ex-supercop fighting video piracy to raid a big Kochi studio. The studio's owner, suspected to be pirating movie videos, is the wife of another IG of police, a famously well-connected senior officer who was himself with the same state anti-piracy cell some time ago, even playing the poster-boy in its ads. As the raid party reaches the studio gates, things stir at the political heights. The DGP rings the anti-piracy IG asking him to keep off that studio, he doesn't oblige. Within minutes, the DGP faxes the order to take him off the beat, while the studio men gang up and foil the raid. Next morning, the CM decides to assert, summons the DGP and asks him to give IG No 1 his job back. That done, he gets the policemen to go and raid the studio. But there is more to the story. The protagonists are Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, IGs Rishiraj Singh and Tomin Thachankary, DGP Raman Srivastava, former supercop JF Ribeiro's daughter Nina Engineer, who heads the anti-piracy efforts of Indian Music Industry (IMI), a national trade body of the music industry. Nina and her team had flown down from New Delhi after the Riyan Studio in Kochi, a large unit run by IG Tomin Thachankary's wife, was named by those whom Singh, who heads the anti-piracy cell of state the police, had arrested in a raid in Thiruvananthapuram. They were arrested with fake VCDs that they said were sourced from Riyan Studio. Singh and Nina, a team of local cops in tow, went to Riyan Studio on Thursday to do a search. The employees refused to let them in. Soon, IG Thachankary appeared, telling Singh to go away from his wife's studio. He refused, and an altercation followed. Minutes later, the DGP's call came telling him to stop the raid, but Singh stood his ground. The DGP told Singh he was summarily removing him from anti-piracy job, and faxed the order to the local DIG's office here to be passed on to him. Both Thachankary and Singh have both been colourful characters in different ways, often hogging headlines for non-police reasons. Thachankary, part-time musician who is into the audio-video business in his wife's name, is a known protege of CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. He had greatly helped Vijayan source the equipment from abroad for setting up the party's TV channel, Kairali, though he had his share of trouble too. Four years ago, customs men had caught his official gunman who was flying in with him on a Silk Air flight from Singapore, carrying electronic video equipment worth a small fortune. Thachankary claimed he was returning from a personal visit abroad, and had no clue why the gunman was travelling with him. Singh, on the other hand, was hauled up by the Lok Ayukta but reprieved by the Kerala High Court, after he played the villain in a popular TV soap. He was also the one who sought action against a fellow IG who hit a constable in public. But the turning point was this morning, when an angry VS Achuthanandan stepped into the picture. He summoned the DGP to his official residence, and told him to put Singh back in his job, forthwith. "The DGP told me that Singh is not empowered to conduct a raid, but only function as a nodal officer. I asked him if he wanted that officer to simply sit over information and not act. I asked the DGP if he realised how his action made it look as if my government is abetting such crimes. He had no answer,'' VS said later. Though police sources insist that the DGP was forced to act the way he did at the instance of the Pinarayi Vijayan camp, an embarrassed Pinarayi acolyte and Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan claimed he had no clue about what happened. "I have asked the DGP to give me an explanation,'' Kodiyeri maintained. VS, meanwhile, directed the Home department to resume the raid on Thachankary's studio soon after. Kochi city police commissioner P Vijayan, who led the raid, told The Indian Express that he has seized some video CDs from the studio and these were being examined. "We have already registered a piracy case against the studio,'' he said, adding that simultaneous raids were now on in several other studios as well in the city. [EMAIL PROTECTED] --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
