AFP, NEW DELHI: Russian manufacturers of the world-famed Kalashnikov are upset with an assault rifle that India has made for its forces and is hawking at an international arms fair, officials said here Friday.
Indian makers of the 7.62-millimetre assault rifle are hotly debating the claims, saying the weapon, which will be mass produced by state-run Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) was not a bastard sibling of the Russian AK-47 rifle.
But Russians attending an international defence exhibition being held here disagree and say India has infringed the Kalashnikov patent.
“Bulgaria has our permission to manufacture AK-47s for export (but) I don't see any such permission being given to India to manufacture the rifle.
“We don't give such permission,” said Andrei Vishnyakov of the Russian Izhmash company, the original Kalashnikov manufacturers.
Vishnyakov said the company has taken up the issue with OFB, the main sidearms supplier to Indian armed forces, and argued that the timber-butt assault rifle displayed at the Board's pavilion was a poor match of the Russian product.
“Until now the government of India has not bought any AK-47s from us although we are hopeful of selling them here,” he said.
OFB gun designer Mohammad Ali argued the Russians were barking up the wrong tree.
“The cocking mechanism is different, the lever has been changed and the barrel is chrome-plated but the basic design of any gun in the world works on similar principles,” Ali told AFP.
OFB joint general manager M.K. Garg was equally dismissive.
“The Russian Kalashnikov was made in 1947 and no patent in the armament industry is valid beyond 30 years… It seems they are threatened by our product,” he said.
“In any case we have not formally launched our assault rifle and the Russian statements are not correct and finally the prototype is different to that which the Russians are selling.”
Russia is technology-starved India's largest arms suppliers, accounting for more than 70 percent of the defence needs of its long-time strategic partner and both sides say just an issue of purported patent infringement cannot come in the way of the cosy ties.
“We are historic partners. We have great ties and we want to arm India with the best systems to defend itself against terrorism but are open only to legal cooperation with the Indian government,” said Vishnyakov.
More than 50 armies have adopted the Kalashnikov and 20 countries have built variants, while the half-century-old technology has also been reproduced to varying standards for illegal arms bazaars across the globe.
“It is illegal to copy our design,” Vishnyakov said.
Fair officials said the unsavoury dispute surfaced when Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, the father of the rifle that bears his name, visited the OFB pavilion and to his dismay found the Indian assault rifle on prominent display.
