I am no pirate: Nag Ravi

By: Settu Shankar
Friday, November 09, 2007

Nag Ravi denied the charges of video piracy leveled by the producer of Machakkaran. He called this correspondents mobile number and clarified his stand. He said: "I'm not a video pirate. I had taken the overseas distribution rights of 'Machakkaaran' for which I had made 7 prints out of which 2 were sent to US, 4 to Malaysia on November 6, and the other one was to be sent to Singapore next day morning. The first print was given to me on 4th of November, and I personally took it to Malaysia by a Jet Airways flight. If I wanted to, I could have taken a video then in Malaysia itself?"

According to Ravi, he had arranged for a preview show for his friends at Devi Sri Devi Preview theatre on November 6th night. He said, "It was my mistake to make arrangements to screen the film with an overseas print. But I switched off my mobile after the incident, which gave the impression that I was absconding. Actually I was in Mumbai that time on some other work."

He also said that he didn't shoot the film with a camera and the producer's claims are false. A big relief for Ravi is the clean chit given by the police officers to him. The Teynampet police said after investigating the matter, "It wouldn"t have been possible to make a pirated CD of the movie in the preview theatre. And if Nag Ravi wanted he could have made digital versions as he has sent his own copies to Malaysia, a few days earlier."

After being enlightened by the police, the Tamil Film Producers Council is also backing Ravi. Today Ravi met the producer council President Rama Narayanan and Secretary Sivasakthi Pandian. There will be meeting arranged in Producer's council with Ravi and the producer of the movie to sort out all the issues amicably. But according to the sources, some top political persons also involved in this and rescued Ravi from the crisis.

This hot and shocking news rocked Kollywood for the past two days – when everyone one was in the midst Diwali celebrations. Before Nag Ravi got in touch with us, the producer and the unit members of this Jeevan starrer claimed to have caught the 'pirate' when he was in action at Devi Sridevi preview theatre in Chennai. The producer and unit members also beat him up. The theatre and Nag"s BMW was destroyed before the producer filed the complaint at the police station.

Nag Ravi recently celebrated the first anniversary of his company Insight Entertainment Media limited, which deals with production and distribution of Tamil films worldwide. Better known as Sneha's former lover, his firm is one the leading film distributors.