Noida firm illegally airs Dish TV content, director held

A director of a private company, which allegedly hacked into the frequency of a DTH service provider to illegally broadcast paid content, has been arrested here, police said on Thursday.

Accused Gajendra Singh, a native of Delhi, is the director of "4 Maskmen" local TV cable service firm, which was operating from an office in Block H of Sector 63, the police said.

A Chinese citizen, who worked along with him, is on the run, a senior official said.

A complaint was made in this regard at the Phase 3 police station by DTH service provider Dish TV, which had suspected the foul play, causing it the loss of crores in revenue, Noida SP Vineet Jaiswal said.

"During the probe, the firm's office was raided and around two dozen set top boxes, two computer systems, 16 Dish TV devices, 18 Internet dongle, among others were recovered," he said.

The Phase 3 police team had raided the firm's office accompanied by officials of Dish TV and their claims of illegal operations were found true, he said.

"They had got the set top boxes connected to the Internet and hacked the frequency of Dish TV bandwidth to use their paid content for free illegally. They would further broadcast it to local customers in violation of law," Jaiswal said.

He said it emerged during the probe that the firm was causing losses to the government by illegally broadcasting paid channels without paying for them.

"The company has also been found providing its users access to some prohibited channels and pornography," the SP said.

A case has been registered against the accused under Indian Penal Code Section 420 (fraud), Information Technology Act as well as the Copyright Act, he said.

Noida is home to several regional and national television channels, most of these operating from Sectors 16A (Filmcity), 62 and 63.