A file image of Punjab’s Industries Minister Sanjeev Arora
| Photo Credit: ANI

Bhopal:

A middle-aged businessman and his wife were found dead in their residence in Madhya Pradesh’s Sehore, around 45 km from Bhopal, police said on Friday.

The deceased couple has been identified as Manoj Parmar and wife Neha Parmar. Police found the bodies found hanging from ceiling fans at their home.

Police reportedly have recovered a suicide note from Mr Parmar’s residence, however, the investigating team has yet to disclose the contents of it.

The shocking incident took place a week after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted a raid at Mr Parmar’s properties in Sehore and Indore.

The ED sleuths had conducted raids at several locations, including four premises of Mr Parmar on December 5. Several other businessmen, including some prominent jewellers and a Chartered Accountant (CA), were also raided.

During the raids, ED had seized documents related to several movable and immovable assets and froze a bank balance of Rs 3.5 lakh. Mr Parmar was also arrested in connection with an alleged Rs 6 crore fraud case involving a nationalised bank.

Family members allege that the couple was under extreme stress due to the actions taken by the ED against them. “He (Manoj Parmar) was under mental stress due to the ED’s raid. He ended his life because he was harassed by ED,” Manoj’s younger brother Kailash Parmar told the media on Friday.

Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh held the ED responsible for the deaths, alleging that Mr Parmar was harassed unnecessarily.

“Manoj Parmar was being harassed by the ED without any valid reason mainly because his children had gifted a piggy bank to Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. His house was raided by ED Assistant Director Sanjeet Kumar Sahu,” Digvijaya Singh said.

Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh further stated that he had arranged an advocate to defend him in the court, however, he was so scared and ended his life.

“I had also arranged for a lawyer for Manoj. But, Manoj was so scared that today he and his wife committed suicide this morning. I demand a fair investigation in this matter from the ED director,” Digvijaya Singh said in a series of social media posts.

Sehore district police said the bodies had been taken for post-mortem and further investigation was underway.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Enforcement Directorate Thursday conducted searches against some of the “main vendors” operating on platforms of e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart as part of a foreign direct investment “violation” investigation, official sources said.

A total of 19 premises of these “preferred” vendors located in Delhi, Gurugram and Panchkula (Haryana), Hyderabad (Telangana) and Bengaluru (Karnataka) were covered as part of the action, the sources said.

It is learnt that the ED inspected documents and took copies of some from the premises of about six such vendors who were not named.

The sources said a probe has been initiated by the federal agency under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) after it received several complaints against the two large e-commerce companies where it is alleged that they were “violating India’s FDI (foreign direct investment) rules by directly or indirectly influencing the sale price of goods or services and not providing level playing field for all the vendors”.

There was no immediate response from the two e-commerce companies.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) welcomed the ED action.

“The CAIT, along with several other trade bodies, has been raising these issues for the past few years. I welcome the Enforcement Directorate’s actions as a step in the right direction,” CAIT secretary general and BJP MP from Delhi Praveen Khandelwal said in a statement.

He claimed that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) had also issued “penalty notices” to Amazon and Flipkart, and their “preferred” sellers, for “engaging” in anti-competitive practices that have adversely affected small traders and ‘kirana’ (grocery) stores.

As per existing rules, 100 per cent FDI is allowed through automatic route in the marketplace model of e-commerce. But overseas investment is not permitted in an inventory-based model.

In the market place model, e-commerce entities can only provide a platform for third-party sellers and they cannot own the inventory. They also cannot directly or indirectly influence the price of the goods.

It has been reported in the past that the CCI, which works to ensure fair business practices across sectors in the marketplace, is already looking into alleged anti-competitive ways of e-commerce companies.

The CAIT and mainline mobile retailers’ association AIMRA had also petitioned the CCI sometime back seeking immediate suspension of operations of Flipkart and Amazon as they alleged that the companies engaged in predatory pricing and were burning cash to offer heavy discounts on products .

These practices, in turn, are creating a grey market of mobile phones, causing losses to the exchequer “as players in the grey market evade taxes”, they had said.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal had recently flagged the same concerns as he had questioned Amazon’s announcement of USD 1 billion investment in India, saying the US retailer was not doing any great service to the Indian economy but filling up for the losses it had suffered in the country.

He had said in August that their huge losses in India “smells of predatory pricing”, which is not good for the country as it impacts crores of small retailers.

Goyal said e-commerce companies were eating into the small retailers’ high-value, high-margin products that are the only items through which the mom-and-pop stores survive.

The minister had said that with the fast-growing online retailing in the country, “are we going to cause huge social disruption with this massive growth of e-commerce”.

Khandelwal said that the CAIT has urged the CCI and the ED to protect the businesses of small traders.

“In the new Bharat, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji, no one is above the law. I am hopeful that now the law will take its rightful course and protect the livelihoods of small shopkeepers.

“This government is committed to ensuring that no entity can harm the trading community. In response to multiple complaints filed by the trading community regarding FDI violations and the anti-competitive practices of quick-commerce companies such as Blinkit, Swiggy, and Zepto, we urge both the CCI and the ED to take swift action and prevent any further, irreparable damage to the businesses of small traders,” he said in the statement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)