The latest Harry Potter novel

The detective department seized more than 250 pirated books, almost all of them copies of Harry Potter’s latest adventure, in College Street and Watgunge on Tuesday night. Two people were arrested in this connection.

The first raid was conducted at shop 21A on College Street. Deputy commissioner (detective department) Ajoy Kumar said 12 pirated books were found — including three copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and five other Harry Potter books.

“We arrested Hassan Mallik from the shop,” said an officer of the press section.

During interrogation, Hassan told the police about a godown where pirated books were stored. “We reached the godown in Nazir Lane, in Watgunge. There were cartons of books lying around. We found 260 copies of Deathly Hallows and arrested Mohammad Arshad, alias China, from there,” added the officer.

Kumar said Bloomsbury, the publisher of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, had complained to the police that pirated copies of the latest Harry Potter book were being sold across the city. “We were warned about the possibility of rampant piracy before Deathly Hallows was published. Since then, our officers have been on guard,” he said.

On Tuesday night, representatives of the publishing house confirmed that the seized books were pirated. The police suspect that a large number of pirated copies of Deathly Hallows has been sold, and at the same price as the original.

The officers claimed to have found out that the pirated books were not printed in Calcutta or its adjoining places. “We suspect the books were printed in Mumbai and Delhi. We are contacting our counterparts there and trying to find out how many copies were sent to the city,” said another officer.