By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Amazon on Thursday wrote to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj apologizing for hurting Indian sensibilities by offering doormats with the country’s national flag on it.
The letter from Amazon India’s Vice President and Country Manager Amit Aggrawal a day after Swaraj asked the e-commerce giant to withdraw the offensive article and offer an unconditional apology, otherwise the firm’s officials will not allowed entry to India.
“Amazon India is committed to respecting Indian laws and customs. To the extent that these items offered by a third-party seller in Canada offended Indian sensibilities, Amazon regrets the same. At no time did we intend or mean to offends Indian sentiments,” Aggarwal said in his letter to Swaraj.
The products were from a third-party seller and were listed to be sold in Canada. “These products were not available in India. After learning of the products’ listing, we immediately removed them from the Canadian website and implemented measures to ensure that these products could not be sold on any of our other marketplaces of websites,” Aggarwal added.
The issue was brought to Swaraj’s notice by one of her followers, who tagged her with a screenshot of the company’s website selling “Indian Flag personalised” Welcome Doormats.
The Minister asked the Indian High Commission to take up the matter with Amazon at the highest level. Thereafter she asked the multi-billion dollar firm to tender unconditional apology and to withdraw all products insulting the national flag immediately. “If this is not done forthwith we will not grant Indian Visa to any Amazon official. We will also rescind the Visas issued earlier,” Swaraj said in a sharply worded tweet.
India has been a lucrative market and to capture it, Amazon has announced an investment of $ 5 billion in the country.
