The pirated textbooks seized on Tuesday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

About 4,500 pirated textbooks of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and Visva-Bharati were seized from a godown on Amherst Street on Tuesday. A man was arrested.

A racket was behind the unauthorised printing of English and environment science textbooks for classes V to X, said police.

A preliminary investigation revealed that the books kept in the Raja Dinendra Street godown were printed for the current academic session.

“We are yet to find out where the books were printed,” said deputy commissioner (headquarters) Vineet Goyal.

“Today’s haul is the tip of an iceberg. We will conduct more raids. The arrested man has been charged with violating the copyright act,” added Goyal. “Our job is track down all those involved with the racket — from the ones who printed the book to the shopkeepers who bought them.”

According to an officer of Amherst Street police station, the racket had engaged several agents to distribute the books in stores.

Officials of the secondary education board said the supply of textbooks is not enough to meet the demand. “Unscrupulous people are taking advantage of the shortfall,” said a senior board official.

The police received a tip-off on Monday night about the racket. “We came to know that the owner of a shop on Bankim Chatterjee Street is the kingpin of the racket,” said an officer.

A team of policemen waited outside the shop on Tuesday morning. They detained one of the employees, identified as Manik Dey, as soon as he came to open the outlet.

“We questioned him for an hour. Dey broke down and led us to the godown,” said another officer.

According to Lalbazar, the police had seized fake textbooks last year. “Four years ago, the detective department had impounded a large cache of fake textbooks on College Street. There was a lull for a couple of years before unauthorised publication of textbooks started again last year,” added an officer.

The press section of detective department is on the trail of the racket. “Officers will be on the lookout on College Street. They will raid shops if they see anything suspicious,” said a senior cop.