HYDERABAD: The State Government's ban on the controversial film, `The Da Vinci Code', could well spawn the forbidden fruit, if doubts of the movie's distributor Sony Pictures Releasing India are spot on.

Sony's spokesman Vikramjit Roy told The Hindu that Sony was "surprised and shocked that despite a clearance from the I&B Ministry and Central Board of Film Certification and a peaceful release in several parts of the country", the film was banned.

"The ban will only encourage movie pirates to make a killing. People who want to watch the movie here will already be looking for methods to get a DVD or VCD from places where the movie has been already released.

Pirated discs will soon swamp the market resulting in loss of revenue to the Government and us as well. Somebody who is not connected to the movie will mint money out of it," Mr. Roy said."With the movie running in 119 theatres across India, getting a pirated version is not difficult and given the attention the movie has got, the trouble is worth taking," one library owner said.The movie's release on Friday in Kerala, which has a sizeable Christian population, was event free too..

"The ban is perplexing. We did what the Central Government asked us to do, like disclaimers at the start and end of the film," he said.

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