The retail trade war has intensified with traders’ body CAIT on Thursday demanding that the government impose a ban on Amazon’s e-commerce portal and its operations in India, accusing the global e-tailing giant of indulging in predatory pricing, deep discounting and inventory control.

CAIT secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal demanded an “immediate ban on Amazon’s portal and its operations in India” and an investigation against the company in a time-bound manner. He also urged the government to probe the business practices of Amazon and Flipkart.

The traders’ body also wrote to commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal in this regard on Thursday.

“Our association has been requesting your office to investigate and penalise multinational companies such as Amazon and Flipkart (Walmart) for the blatant violation and/or exploitation of the loopholes of the FDI policy and the Foreign Exchange Management Act/Rules,” CAIT said in the letter to Goyal.

CAIT has demanded a ban on Amazon after Reuters reported the e-tailer’s selective and preferential treatment to select sellers on its platform for years. According to the report, Amazon used these select sellers to circumvent India’s foreign direct investment regulations.

Khandelwal said these “shocking revelations” are enough to ban the operations of Amazon in the country.