Man held for distributing plagiarised poems of Mamata

Kolkata, May 3 (IANS) A man was arrested from central Kolkata Thursday and booked under the Copyright Act for illegally publishing and distributing books containing several poems of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, police said. A court later sent him to police custody till May 10.

"Saheb Sahu was arrested and booked under the Copyright Act for illegally distributing literary works of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee," said a senior official of the city police's enforcement branch.

Sudhashu Sekhar Dey, proprietor of Deys' Publishing which had published 27 books containing Banerjee's works, had Wednesday filed a plagiarism complaint alleging that several poems published by a company headquartered in Delhi had been illegally taken from seven of her books.

"A publishing company based in Delhi has picked up poems from our books and illegally printed them. They have also made Hindi translations of the poems," Dey said.

According to police, the publishing house did not take permission from the original publisher or author before printing and circulating the books. Police are also looking for distribution of such books in other parts of the state.