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Updated: Aug 15, 2017 09:24 IST

Four men were arrested on Monday for allegedly leaking episode 4 from season 7 of the popular television series Game of Thrones.

The company, which has the season’s airing rights, filed a complaint after the episode was found on the internet sites in the first week of August with the channel’s watermark on it. It was a low-quality video of the episode.

An internal inquiry initiated by the company found two employees leaked it online. During investigation, two other names cropped up. Among the four arrested, three are employees of the firm and one is its former employee.

Bhaskar Joshi, Alok Sharma and Abhishek Ghadiyal held technical posts in the firm and had access to the video.

Mohamad Suhail, a former employee, leaked the low-quality video of the episode on the internet after receiving it from the other accused.

Star India released the following statement on Tuesday:

We have just learnt from law enforcement agencies about the significant progress made by them into the investigation of the breach of episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, including the arrest of 4 individuals associated with our technology vendor, Prime Focus Technologies. We are extremely delighted with the speed and rigour with which the Office of the Special Inspector General of Police Mr. Brijesh Singh (Cyber), Government of Maharashtra and office of DCP Cyber Cell, Mumbai have moved on this investigation.

This is the first time in the history of Star India that an incident of this nature has occurred. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift and prompt action. We believe that valuable intellectual property is a critical part of the development of the creative industry and strict enforcement of the law is essential to protecting it.

Deputy commissioner of police (cyber) Akhbar Pathan said, “We have arrested the four accused. Three of them are employees of the firm while one is a former employee. They were based in Bangalore. We have their custody till August 21. We are probing how and why they committed the crime.”

They have been booked under section 408, 34 of IPC for breach of trust with common intention and sections 43 and 66 of IT Act for penalty and compensation for damage to computer and computer-related offences

The private company had given a written complaint to the MIDC police station in Andheri east. They also approached the cyber police station last week with a written complaint after which an FIR was registered.

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