A counterfeit combat uniform racket running through the markets of Sriganganagar in Rajasthan has been broken up by intelligence personnel of the Indian Army working with the state police, who together seized close to 1,000 metres of unauthorised Army-pattern combat cloth from shops across the district. The action also exposed a wider network that was allegedly feeding fake military uniforms to vendors around the region.

A Bareilly seizure that pointed west

The case did not begin in Rajasthan. In June this year, similar counterfeit combat cloth was recovered in Bareilly, and that seizure traced back to a manufacturing source in Sriganganagar.

Acting on the lead, Army intelligence ran a discreet inquiry in the city. It pointed to a local firm as a key link in the supply chain, allegedly distributing counterfeit Army-pattern combat cloth to shops in Sriganganagar town, Lalgarh Jattan, Suratgarh and other nearby markets.

The raids across the district

An interim investigation report was shared with the Rajasthan Police in the middle of July. That set up a coordinated operation on Thursday, in which security personnel and police searched multiple shops spread across the district.

The searches recovered roughly 1,000 metres of new-pattern counterfeit combat cloth. Unauthorised possession, sale or use of military-pattern combat cloth is an offence under law.

Why a counterfeit combat uniform is a security matter

The worry is not only about trademark. Cloth made to the Army's combat pattern, once it is on open sale, can dress anyone who walks in to buy it. Investigators treat that as the sharper danger. Material of this kind can enable impersonation of armed forces personnel, and impersonation near installations or at a checkpoint turns a length of fabric into a security gap.

The pattern the Army guards

The force adopted a new digital disruptive combat uniform on Army Day in January 2022, designed with the National Institute of Fashion Technology. Its pattern and camouflage were later registered as protected intellectual property with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trademarks, which is why the fabric is not meant for a shop shelf.

Combat uniforms reach soldiers through authorised Army channels. Any vendor manufacturing or selling the pattern outside those channels is operating illegally, which is what places the Sriganganagar consignment beyond ordinary contraband.

An old problem in new cloth

Sriganganagar is not the first market to draw such an operation. Comparable seizures of fake combat material have surfaced in other states over the past two years, each one following the same shape, a maker somewhere feeding tailors and cloth shops far from any barracks. The dress regulations that govern how the Army is turned out now sit alongside a tightening line on who is allowed to make its cloth in the first place.