Ravindra Kishore Sinha, widely known as RK Sinha, founder of Security and Intelligence Services (SIS) Group and a former member of the Rajya Sabha, has died at the age of 75. News reports, citing family sources, say he passed away at his residence in Noida on Friday, 30 October 2026, after a brief illness. He is survived by his wife, his son Rituraj, a former national secretary of the BJP, and a daughter.

Sinha’s own story was one of unusual range: a young reporter in Patna who left journalism with a small sum of money, started a security company around retired army men, and went on to build a business with an international footprint, before entering Parliament in 2014.

RK Sinha: From The Searchlight to a Garage in Patna

RK Sinha was born on 22 September 1951 in Bihar, in a family with limited means and real financial responsibilities. He studied political science and law while starting out in journalism, and in the early 1970s worked as a reporter for the Patna newspaper The Searchlight, covering crime, politics and public affairs. His reporting during the 1971 India-Pakistan war put him in touch with army personnel, a connection that later shaped his career.

In 1973, after differences with his employer over his political views and activities, he left the job. By the accounts of his life that are widely told, the money he received on leaving was only about ₹250, roughly two months of his salary. That sum became the starting money for what came next.

How Two Needs Became One Business

Around that time, an acquaintance in construction asked Sinha for trained former army men to guard a project site. Sinha, who knew servicemen from his reporting days, saw two needs that fitted together. Retired soldiers had discipline, experience and security skills, but many struggled to find meaningful work after leaving the forces. Meanwhile, businesses wanted dependable security, even though organised private security was still a young sector in India.

Instead of treating the request as a one-off job, he set out to connect trained ex-servicemen with organisations that needed professional guards. In February 1974, in his early twenties, he founded Security and Intelligence Services in Patna, working at first from a small garage.

From 14 Ex-Servicemen to an International Group

RK Sinha began by calling on his contacts in the armed forces and recruiting retired servicemen. The first team is reported to have had about 14 former army personnel, and their discipline helped the young firm serve its first client. Accounts of the company’s first year say its workforce grew to roughly 250 to 300 people and its turnover crossed ₹1 lakh.

As industries, offices and financial institutions multiplied, so did the demand for professional security, and SIS grew with it. The group invested in training and in better operating systems, and over time moved beyond guarding into areas such as facilities management and cash logistics. In 2008 it acquired the Australian operations of Chubb Security, a milestone in its overseas growth, and it later built a presence in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

According to BW Security World, SIS Group is now recognised as one of the leading manpower security businesses in Asia Pacific, with more than 36,000 permanent employees, about 3,000 corporate customers and a turnover above USD 350 million.

Jobs for Retired Servicemen

Employment was part of the idea from the start. Hiring retired servicemen gave people moving from military to civilian life a practical way to keep working, while clients got guards used to discipline and vigilance. As SIS grew, its workforce spread far beyond the first 14, and the security sector also offered structured work, training and a steady livelihood to many others. Because clients trust security staff with property and safety, training and staff management sat at the centre of the business.

RK Sinha in Journalism, Politics and Public Life

Sinha never confined himself to business. His years as a journalist fed an interest in public affairs, and he was associated with the political movements of the 1970s and with the political tradition from which the Bharatiya Janata Party emerged. He was among the early members linked to the BJP after its formation in 1980 and later became a senior party figure. In 2014 he was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bihar, and he served until 2020.

He also stayed close to the media world, serving as chairman of Hindusthan Samachar, a multilingual news agency, and wrote on politics, society and security. His books include Jan Andolan, on the student movement associated with Jayaprakash Narayan.

Tributes

What His Story Teaches Entrepreneurs

Many who knew his story point to a few lessons from Sinha’s journey for people starting out with limited means.

RK Sinha’s Legacy Beyond Wealth

Sinha’s legacy is not only the size of SIS. It lies in helping professionalise private security, in the jobs created, and in a business model that matched a market need with a workforce that had specialised experience. His career also covered several fields: journalism gave him a feel for public affairs, enterprise let him build an organisation, and politics offered a place in public life.

The distance between a sum of about ₹250 and a company operating across borders was not covered overnight. It took years of recruiting, winning clients, training people and building systems, and that is perhaps the most useful part of the story, because it shows the work behind the success. RK Sinha’s passing closes a significant chapter in India’s business and public life, and the message his journey leaves for young Indians and first-generation entrepreneurs is that present circumstances need not set the limits of the future.