Swat, 3 January: In a successful raid carried out at Habib Brother Book Centre situated in Khwaza Khella bazar, around 728 pirated copies of Oxford University Press (OUP) textbooks were seized. The raid was conducted by the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) in conjunction with the local police team.
The stock confiscated from the site included pirated versions of OUP textbooks Primary Science, Guided English, Social Studies for Pakistan, Urdu ka Guldasta, Get Ahead Maths, Modern English, New Active English, and Get Ahead Science. 70 pirated CDs of the OUP title Social Studies for Pakistan along with 50 pirated security labels were also recovered during the raid.
Book piracy constitutes a punishable offence under the Pakistan Penal Code. Following the raid, the owner of the bookshop, Riaz Ahmad, has been arrested and an FIR has been lodged against him under Sections 56, 66 and 67 of the Copyright Ordinance 1962. All the pirated materials have been taken into custody by the FIA and the bookshop has been sealed.
Such infringements of Intellectual Property Rights cause massive losses to the publishing industry, the authors, the Pakistan government, as well as the parents and pupils who are cheated into buying sub-standard pirated books.