Sale of illegal items on Amazon continuing; police seized 48 kg marijuana in Visakhapatnam: CAIT

New Delhi, Nov 22 (IANS) Even after being caught for selling over 20 kg marijuana by the Bhind police in Madhya Pradesh and for the sale of banned chemicals used in making the bomb used in the Pulwama terror attack, Amazon is continuing the illegal trade, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said.

According to CAIT, after being tipped off by the Bhind police, the police in Visakhapatnam have recovered 48 kg marijuana from one of Amazon's partners. An FIR was registered in this connection on November 20 under the NDPS Act, 1985, CAIT claimed in a statement.

It is learnt that two Amazon delivery boys have also been arrested by the Visakhapatnam police, CAIT said.

Further, Madhya Pradesh police have also recovered another lot of 17 kg marijuana from Amazon and its partners for which an FIR has been registered at the Mehgoan police Station under the NDPS Act, 1985 and one person has been arrested.

The CAIT has demanded the Visakhapatnam police to register a case under Section 38 of NDPS Act as was done by the Bhind police.

Terming Amazon as a 'Ganja Company', CAIT national President B.C. Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal have demanded that keeping in view the scale of illegality by Amazon, the government should immediately suspend Amazon's operations in India and arrest Amazon officials besides registering a case of treason against the company.

Bhartia and Khandelwal urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for their immediate direct intervention in the matter.

CAIT has also urged Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to immediately release the e-commerce rules, e-commerce policy and a new press note replacing press note No. 2 of the FDI policy, so that the conduct of the e-commerce companies in India could be regulated.

Bhartia and Khandelwal have urged the Centre to conduct an intensive and thorough probe into the business model of big e-commerce players, including Amazon, to ensure that no sale of prohibited items or anti-national activities are conducted on e-commerce portals and liability is fixed on marketplace entities involved in the sale of prohibited items directly or indirectly.

Bhartia and Khandelwal said that these illegal activities being conducted on Amazon e-commerce platform reflects the hollowness of e-commerce business in India in the absence of any specific rule or law, which is a sorry state of administrative system in India.

CAIT said that not only the role of the Centre and state governments is under question, but even the utter silence of all the political parties on this issue is also under scanner.

It is highly regretted that no one has taken the issue seriously inspite of the fact that CAIT and other organisations have made some serious complaints, it said.