Four nabbed for illegal TV broadcast

Hyderabad: The police has arrested a cable operator and three of his assistants for allegedly broadcasting Indian TV channels illegally in foreign countries. The accused Kashif Ali Khan and S. Ahuja, who is now absconding, downloaded several channels using the dishes of DTH providers, and broadcasted them to foreign countries via the Internet.

Police said they had a large number of customers in Australia, US, UK and Saudi Arabia, Dubai and other countries. The men earned more than a crore illegally in this way. DCP Pala Raju said the fraudsters designed set top boxes and used the Internet to transmit downloaded programmes.

"They sold these set top boxes for 200 to 300 US dollars to customers in foreign countries. They downloaded more than 100 Indian channels using cable connections and DTH and transmitted them to the set top boxes sold in other countries," he said.

The police suspect that a powerful mafia is behind the operation.