Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has slammed reports that he allegedly watched a pirated copy of Aamir Khan's film "PK", saying the special screening was organised through Club X media server.
Before making the screening of "PK" tax free in the state, Akhilesh Yadav had said that he had watched PK on 31 December. "I downloaded it a few days ago, but only found the time to watch it last night. I liked it immediately and decided to make it tax-free so that more people can watch it," he had said in a statement.
His statement raised serious concerns as to how a person occupying a constitutional post could watch a pirated copy of a movie.
Sanjay Sharma, founder of TAHRIR, lodged a complaint at the Hazratganj Police on 2 January for asking for an FIR against Yadav for the offence of downloading the film from a website and watching a pirated copy of the film.
The Chief Minister's office responded to the controversy on its Twitter handle.
It read: "#UPCM #Akhileshyadav has licensed @UFOMoviez digifacility to download & watch movies. Controversy around pirated download is unwarranted (sic)."
A statement from his office further clarified the matter.
"The screening of PK was done on Club X media server installed at Akhilesh Yadav's residence. The Club X service enables authorised private screenings of movies at Club X licensed auditorium of its members. Movies can be screened from the date of their theatrical release in India," PTI quoted his office as saying.
"Movies are delivered to the Club X media servers over a captive satellite network or are physically delivered and are stored in a digitally encrypted form. A licence is required to playback the movie each time and is issued based upon the authorisation received from the content owners," it said.
The statement ended by saying that assumptions about downloading a movie over the Internet and any unathourised use thereof are baseless. "This is a commercial service with all the necessary authorisations from the content providers. This screening was done with a licence which was issued specifically for this screening."
