Indians For Guns

This past weekend I enjoyed a nice lazy Sunday, spent mostly at home. Incidentally, besides being a Sunday it also happened to be the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. So while the little one watched the gazillionth rerun of "Gandhi" on the telly and I tried to keep up with his questions, I filled in the gaps by killing some time on the net.

Any Indian who has had any exposure to guns would have, at least at some point of time, shot a few rounds manufactured at the Ammunition Factory Khadki (previously called Kirkee) and if you are like me, then the majority of your shooting would have been done with KF ammo! With their trademark "KF" headstamp and performance parameters/ tolerances that would probably make the good folks at SAAMI/ CIP go ballistic, their products have found their way into almost every gun cabinet (or if you prefer almairah) in India.

The long & short of it is, I ended up trying to google for more information on this establishment; the reason for this post is the amazing paucity of information on the place! The following is what I could find:

Kirkee Cantonment is one of the oldest Cantonments in India, having its own place in history. On 5th November 1817, the battle of Kirkee (Khadki) was fought between the Marathas and the British on the ground covering the present day town. It was established in the year 1817. Kirkee Cantonment covers an area of 3275.49 acres or 13.25 sq km of land. In 1939,when the Second World War began, Kirkee was called the Home Of Ordnance since both the Kirkee Arsenal and the I.A.O.C. School were located here.

Kirkee Cantonment has a varied mix of important units and establishments, like, BEG and Centre, CAFVD, 512 Army Base Workshop, College of Military Engineering, an Ammunition Factory and a High Explosives Factory.

Kirkee is a Class I Cantonment (Population 77473) located at a height of 559.91 M. above the sea level having a moderate climate.

From http://www.cbkirkee.org.in/

Some basic contact information from their own website which is at http://ofbindia.nic.in/units/index.php?unit=afk ; some more inane background from wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkee

Unfortunate state of things for a place that has been manufacturing ammunition in India since the late 1800's and even now is the only ammunition manufacturer of any real size in India. While their current products might be terrible, they do have a rich history which for some reason is not easily available to the public.

If anyone can add to what little is available above, would be really great!

Cheers!
Abhijeet

Legend has it that the sport of badminton had its origins on the premises of the Ammunition Factory in Khadki, Pune, more than a century ago in the 1860’s. A British army officer, who was enjoying a drink in the out-house of the army headquarters, is said to have stuffed a bunch of stray feathers into the cork of the bottle and tossed it to his fellow officer, who tossed it back.
More in here..
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/reviv ... to/817269/

Syed..

All I can add is some personal stuff. When I was very young, my dad was posted to do a course at the CME in Kirkee. After that he was seconded to some place where he helped design a mine roller for a tank (He was a Mechanical and Electrical Engineer). At first we lived in "kutcha barracks" and then we moved to a house. We lived in Kirkee cantt. Shortly after we were posted away from there, part of the Ordnance factory blew up and it blew off the roof of the house we used to live in. I want to say that this around 1967-68.

I went to a small private school called Mrs Stan's private school. It was a one room schoolhouse run by an English Lady who taught me the fundamentals of the English Language. This was about the time I should have been in Kindergarten.
I remember also that there were large packs of wild dogs that were shot by the police and a bunch of the neighborhood people.

I believe that the reason there is so little info about the place is because the Government considers almost everything defense related to be a secret.