'Premam' piracy row: Three censor board staffers nabbed

The Anti-Piracy Cell of the Kerala Police on Monday took into custody three temporary staffers of the Central Board of Film Certification over the leak of Malayalam film "Premam".

According to the police, the arrests came after scientifically ascertaining the trio's role in leaking the popular film, which was released in the last week of May.

The leak was detected a few days after the film released, forcing its producer Anwar Rasheed to quit his membership of all Malayalam film-based organisations.

The leak of the film had sent shockwaves in the Malayalam film industry after it was found that the leaked copy which was available freely carried the watermark of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

It was ace director Priyadarshan who first requested the chairperson CBFC to ensure that the role of the CBFC office here be probed properly, after his name had cropped up since a part of the post-production was done at his studio in Chennai.

With the entire film industry up in arms over the leak, even the state government was under pressure to act quickly and eyebrows was raised when the police probe team arrested three students from Kollam for uploading the film on the internet.

The police team that nabbed the three temporary staff is understood to have found out the manner in which the leak took place and the way in which it found its way into the internet.

The police probe team is expected to arrest a few more persons who have been found to play truant with the leaked copy.

"Premam" was touted as a film which was going to break all collection records, had hit a rough patch very soon after its release in the last week of May.

The film stars Nivin Pauly, billed as the rising star of the Malayalam film industry, through a string of hugely-popular films like "Bangalore Days", "Oru Vadekan Selfie", "Ivide" to name a few.