27 Apr 2009: CHENNAI: Six suspected Sri Lankan LTTE sympathizers, including the chairman of a software development company and a computer engineer, were arrested on Saturday for preparing VCDs and DVDs that could be prejudicial to public tranquility. The DVDs and VCDs contained short clips of some famous Tamil films where the original actors’ faces were replaced with images of people like Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and director Seeman and inflammatory speeches included. The clips, with names like Seeman Manohara, Puthiya Parasakthi, Meendum Kannagi and others, were also posted on the youtube website.

S Kabilan (45) of Alapakkam, A Divakaran (30) and S Kamaladasan (28) of Valasaravakkam, P Suresh Babu Kumar (36) and S Saravana Sundaram (42) of Alwar Thiru Nagar and P Balasundaram (27) of Padikuppam were nabbed in a surprise police raid on the office in KK Nagar following a a tip-off. They were booked under Sections 171 (F) (punishment for undue influence or personation at an election), 153 (A) (promotiong enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 124 (A) (sedition), 505 (I) (b) (activities prejudicial to public tranquility), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and two Sections of the Copyright Act. Nine computers, a laptop and at least 5,000 VCDs and DVDs were recovered. The firm was sealed and the arrested remanded in judicial custody.

According to the police, Kabilan and Kamaladasan, natives of Jaffna in Sri Lanka, came here as refugees the former in 1984 and the latter in 1997. They had been running the company as chaiman and director respectively for a few years. Divakaran, a priest, was the voice-over for the actors picturised in the DVDs and VCDs, Saravana Sundaram translated the dialogues, while computer engineer Suresh Babu was the web designer. Kabilan, the police said, began a movement called Sivanadiyargal Sangam’ and later developed the Tamil software that operates in all the operating system. The package was being sold for Rs 9,000 along with the kit.

"Kabilan and Kamaladasan prepared the DVDs and VCDs where the images of actors and actresses were morphed by pictures of director Seeman and others. The original voices were muted and inflammatory speeches included. Each short film ran for 8-10 minutes," a senior police officer said.(Times of India)