Two arrested for ‘selling’ pirated textbooks in Sirsa

The police have arrested two bookstore owners in Fatehabad district for allegedly selling pirated versions of textbooks published by a reputed company.

The crackdown was launched after complaints from a legal representative of S Chand and Company Ltd, New Delhi. The publisher alleged that its books were being illegally copied and sold.

In the first case, Sachin, the owner of Bajaj Book Depot near Shiv Chowk in Fatehabad city, was arrested after police recovered several counterfeit books from his store.

The complaint was filed by Sanjeev Kumar Raghav, the authorised representative of S Chand & Company.

Acting on a tip off, he sent an associate to buy Class X chemistry and physics books from the store. Upon inspection, the books were found to be fake.

Following this, the police conducted a raid and found 29 more counterfeit books — Class XI biology (11 copies), physics (9 copies) and chemistry (9 copies) books.

A case was registered under charges of fraud and violation of the Copyright Act, and Sachin was taken into custody.

In a separate incident in Bhuna town of Fatehabad, a raid was conducted at Satish Book Depot on Wednesday morning. Acting on similar information, the company used a decoy customer, who purchased five books. Upon investigation, 35 counterfeit books were recovered from the store. These included textbooks for classes V-XII, and preparation books for competitive exams. The police registered an FIR based on the complaint by Sanjeev Kumar Raghav, and arrested Manjeet Singh, the store owner.

According to Bhuna SHO Surender, further investigation is underway.

The publishing company said the sale of counterfeit books not only caused financial loss to publishers, but also misled students with incorrect or poor quality content.

Authorities have assured strict action against those involved in the printing, sale or distribution of pirated educational material.

Haryana Tribune