On January 6, former Bihar CM Lalu Prasad Yadav daughter Rohini Acharya posted a picture on X holding an assault rifle. She was at a military training installation in Singapore where she had seen off her son Aditya at the start of a mandatory two-year basic military course given to all citizens of the island nation. Acharya posted a cryptic caption, ‘can distinguish right from right and wrong and aim is perfect,” she posted cryptically leading to speculation about relations with  her estranged brother Tejaswi Yadav. 

Interestingly, the rifle she was holding, the Singapore Assault Rifle - 21st century (SAR-21), was at the centre of a sensational UPA-era scandal. In 2009, the CBI uncovered a bribery scandal where ST Kinetics had allegedly bribed the Chairman of the Indian defence ministry’s Ordnance Factory Board (OFB). Rohini’s father Lalu Prasad Yadav was then Railway Minister.

OFB Chairman Sudipta Ghosh was arrested by the CBI in May 2009 for accepting ‘illegal gratification from contractors who had won supply  orders from the ordnance factories’. Rs 2 crore in cash was recovered from Ghosh and four associates in Delhi and Kolkata.

ST Kinetics was a frontrunner for a lucrative contract for carbines to replace the police, paramilitary and Indian military’s World War 2 vintage Sterling sub-machine guns. The bull pup assault rifles would be license-produced in the OFB’s 41st factory, set up exclusively to manufacture small arms in Korwa, Amethi. Amethi Member of Parliament Rahul Gandhi laid the foundation stone for the factory in December 2007. ST Kinetics had positioned their Singapore Assault Rifle (SAR-21) chambered for the 5.56 x 45 mm as an option for the Indian armed forces. STK was also in the fray for another for 400 towed artillery guns. 

ST Kinetics was also offering India its 155 x 39 mm Pegasus Light Weight Howitzer The OFB was an MoD-run conglomerate of 41 ordnance factories. ST Kinetics Ltd, the CBI said in a June 2010 chargesheet, was one of four other foreign firms including Israel Military Industries Ltd (IMI), Rheinmetall Air Defence (RAD), had bribed Sudipta Ghosh the then OFB Chairman. In March 2012 the MoD barred six companies including ST Kinetics Ltd from doing business in India for 10 years for their alleged involvement in corruption.

‘The process amounted to a sophisticated connivance by OFB and STK to sell STK carbines to MHA without going through the approved laid down procedures’ a CAG report in 2010 stated. (Detailed story here https://stratpost.com/anatomy-of-a-blacklist-singapore-technologies/)

Cut to 2026. The Korwa factory is in production after being defunct for close to two decades. It now manufactures 6 lakh AK-203 assault rifles for the Indian Army under a 2021 contract with Russia. The CBI case against ST Kinetics remains in a limbo for unknown reasons. On December 30, the MoD contracted two indigenous firms Bharat Forge Ltd and PLR Systems Pvt Ltd to buy 4.25 lakh assault rifles worth Rs 4,666 crore to replace the Sterling SMG. The SAR-21 rifle is thus a throwback to the days of import dependence and defence corruption scandals. 

Arjun Dev Singh

Arjun Dev Singh has a deep interest in defence, security, and strategic affairs. With a strong analytical lens and a passion for military and geopolitical developments, Arjun strives to bring clarity and context to complex national and international issues.