LAHORE, Aug 5: Police have arrested two unauthorised computer dealers in the Cantonment area on charges of installing pirated software on hard drives.

According to a news release issued by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) on Tuesday, these arrests have been made as part of the government’s crackdown on illegal software vendors.

During the raid, the police had also confiscated 389 pirated CDs and three computers containing pirated versions of a number of popular computer softwares as an evidence for the court.

The news release said Pakistan had 84 per cent software piracy rate, which had become a major obstacle for the local IT sector.

“Due to this extremely high piracy rate, Pakistan has to suffer a loss of $125 million in 2007,” said Salman Siddiqui, genuine software manager at Microsoft Pakistan.