New Delhi: The Crime Branch of Delhi Police arrested an owner of a printing press for allegedly pirating NCERT books, police informed on Tuesday. Manoj Jain, a college dropout was running the printing press in the Shahdara area of North-East Delhi.
Meanwhile, cops recovered printed and half-printed books in a huge quantity from the printing press. They also seized the material used in printing including the fake watermark of NCERT and the latest machinery from the press approximately worth Rs 35 lakh.
Police raided on September 18 on the printing press, however, the main accused Manoj Jain was managed to escape from the spot. But this time, cops arrested him in the first week of October. Recently, the government made NCERT Books mandatory for every school and hence there was a sudden rise in demand for these books. Unscrupulous elements exploited the situation by getting printed pirated books and hooked in the sellers by offering them a higher profit margin. The said poor quality pirated books are being supplied in the market at cheaper rates causing huge revenue loss to NCERT. The offset unit is publishing pirated NCERT books from the 6th to 12th standard of different subjects, DCP Crime Branch, Rajesh Deo said.
To act upon the information, Director, NCERT was approached for assisting to unearth the entire nexus. A raid was conducted along with the Vigilance Officer and Production officer of NCERT, New Delhi on the publishing unit where the entire setup was unearthed, the officer also said. The accused was running the present setup in Mela Ram Farms since January 2020.