15 August,2017 08:19 PM IST | Mumbai | Vijay Kumar Yadav
The process that went behind leaking episode four of the ongoing season seven of popular TV fantasy drama Game of Thrones seems to be as twisted as the show's plotline
A still from Game of Thrones
A still from Game of Thrones
The process that went behind leaking episode four of the ongoing season seven of popular TV fantasy drama Game of Thrones seems to be as twisted as the show's plotline. Four accused have been arrested on Sunday for the August 4 leak and it has emerged that one of them is a former employee who colluded with three current employees to leak the episode.
Two accused are still employed with media processing firm Prime Focus Technologies, to whom streaming service Hotstar has given the job of storing and processing data. The firm is also the complainant in the case.
Police sources confirmed that cyber police officers arrested Abhishekh Ghadiyal, Bhaskar Joshi, who are current employees of Prime Focus, Mohammed Suhail, a former employee and one Alok Sharma. They were arrested on the FIR lodged by Shailesh Manohar, the firm's vice president on August 10.
mid-day had reported about the FIR in 'Two booked for leaking GoT episode,' on August 12. The episode had been leaked online on August 4, before its release date of August 7. Investigations have also revealed the key role of Suhail who is presently working for Deloitte in Bangalore, which is a reputable company that is also into media processing and research. After the leak, Prime Focus Technologies had carried out an internal inquiry. Vimlesh Melwani, the firm's vice-president found during the inquiry that Suhail, who left the company in October 2016, used the company's former official email ID and indulged in the illegal activity.
Cops are now trying to find out on how many websites the illegally file was uploaded and what profit the accused made. Brijesh Singh, inspector general of police (cyber) said Hotstar had approached his office after the leak. The Maharashtra cyber wing did the preliminary enquiry and zeroed in on the accused. The Mumbai cyber police then arrested the four accused from Bangalore. Star India said in a statement, "We learnt about the arrest of four individuals. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift action."
