Delhi Police Flags 'Forgery' After Designer's Email Refusing to Make PMO's Table

Designer Kunal Merchant's response to a purported email by the PMO asking him to design a table had gone viral.

Designer Kunal Merchant

Instagram/kunal.merchant

Hours after an email by designer Kunal Merchant declining PM Narendra Modi’s offer to design a table for him went viral on social media on Friday, 15 April, the Delhi Police shared the screenshots of the said letter flagging a complaint of “forgery, impersonation and identity fraud of an office bearer at the Prime Minister’s Office”.

On Friday, Merchant had shared screenshots of a purported email from the PMO, informing him that he has been identified to build a desk for the PMO. To this, as per the screenshots, Merchant wrote back declining the offer due to his “political and social views”.

The screenshots of his reply were widely shared, and even reposted on Instagram stories by Merchant.

However, by Friday evening, the official Twitter handle of Delhi police commissioner Rakesh Asthana had shared the screenshots and stated that: “We have received a complaint regarding forgery, impersonation and identity fraud of an office bearer at the Prime Minister’s Office. The matter is under investigation.”

The Quint reached out to Merchant for a response via calls and text, but there was no response.

Don't Want to Contribute to 'Prejudiced, Hateful, Exclusive, Racist' Policies: Merchant

In the said email, Merchant had written that he would have taken up the project had things been different. He wrote that the Modi government was promoting a “prejudiced, hateful, exclusive and racist” version of India and not a “secular, plural, inclusive, tolerant” one that he wants to promote.

Merchant further wrote that with 20 percent of citizens living below the poverty line and 22 percent of Muslims living in “marginalised conditions” created by the “government and its policies”, it would not be morally or ethically feasible to make “a desk for the head of our government on which laws and policies will be signed to further this agenda of segregation and deprivation of minorities”.

Merchant also wrote how he describes himself as a Gandhian and that “it is no secret” that he has been “fundamentally opposed to the politics and policies” of the PM.

“Please remember that history treats the supporters, suppliers, and propagators of Nazis as Nazis themselves,” Merchant wrote, adding that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with this regime or contribute to it.