Indian defence provider “Stratign” blacklisted earlier, back in business now
An Indian mogul — Anant Bindal’s ties with a Dubai-based Cyber Intelligence Company, have been reappeared with a new game and is now reaching out to different Indian agencies and defence departments which supply high-end surveillance equipment and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) which are being procured from Turkey, but was marketed and branded as their own products.
The Indian businessman is the director at Stratign, a firm that provides innovatively integrated electronic systems, products, and services to global contractors, military forces, and intelligence agencies of nation-states.
The Bindal family, who controls Stratign and its related various companies, had shifted their base to Dubai in 2005 after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in May 2005 shared confidential advisory for not dealing with them due to their involvement in forgery and cheating related cases to intelligence and investigating agencies against three companies (all related to each other) — Shoghi Communications, Secure Telecom and Sidhi Tech Services.
Stratign was blacklisted by the European Union government then former telecom ministery headed by Sukhram (1993–1996) on 4th July 2005. The reason for the blacklist was to interact with any government department for forging government certificate for importing sensitive surveillance technology.
Stratign operated at the Oberoi Tower Business Bay, Dubai, and one of its fronts in Shimla-based Shoghi Communications Limited. Both the companies were the largest supplier of surveillance and counter surveillance equipment to multiple government agencies, including the Military Intelligence and Research and Indian govt agencies.
One of the products that was pushed by the Stratign is the Turkish made Bayraktar TB2 drone. Due to their recent success in Ukraine-Russia war, TB2 drone gained attention worldwide. These drones have proved to be useful in the situation of low intensity conflict.
Radhakrishan Shibu (business head of Stratign) an expert in communications, who worked in the Indian army for almost 22 years before leaving it in October 2013 from the post of Lieutenant Colonel and joining Tata (Strategic Engineering Division SED) and then moved to Stratign in March 2019.
The chain of events that led to a subsequent black listing of the company started on 26 April 1996 when a squadron commander of the National Security Guard (NSG) received a letter from the Indian Embassy in Belgium that state the reissue of end user certificate for the import of encryption equipment from Siemens Company of Germany.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) handed over the investigation to the CBI on 29 May 1996. The agency filed an FIR in the case on 13 October 1996. It was later seen that Gupta who was the Director of Secure Telecom, was behind the attempts to import the two encryption equipment. In its findings that it filed in September 1998, the CBI found that the individual’s clientele which includes government agencies. However, CBI did not find anything incriminatory against him.
None of these four companies — Stratign, Shoghi Communications, Secure Telecom and Sidhi Tech Services — are on the updated list of the 21 firms that are being barred from doing any business with the Ministry of Defence (dated 12 November 2021). In 2005, the Director-General of Military Intelligence blacklisted the above four companies.
Anant Bindal’s stratign are known for serving cyber offensive services worldwide and now added military drone in his online product catalogue making them utilize in the cyber –warfare arsenal.
