By Bismah Mirza, MBA Media Management
India has unsafeguarded nuclear program and so is the black marketing of Uranium. It is being stolen, sold and kept in brief cases without any safety procedure. A brief rundown of the events in which stolen uranium was recovered along with criminal incidents taking place at nuclear power plant’s side. Repeated incidents in India of stolen uranium being recovered is alarming for two reasons.
Firstly, uranium in small quantities produces massive energy for instance one kilogram of uranium can produce as much energy as 1500 tons of coal and therefore is used in power plants to generate electricity.
Secondly, Uranium is sold to countries which are signatories of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or they allow international inspection to verify that it’s being used for peaceful purposes and India despite being a beneficiary of Nuclear Supply Group (NSG) and member of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has fragile surveillance system.
1. June 4, 2021, 6.4 kilogram of uranium amounting to INR 5 million was recovered from Eastern State of Jharkhan in Bokaro district where seven people were arrested
2. May 5, 2021: 7 kilogram of uranium worth 21.3 crores was recovered from Maharashtra, where two people were arrested.
3. 2018: Kolkata police recovered one kilogram of radioactive uranium which was worth around $440,000.
4. December 2016: 9 kilogram of uranium was confiscated from two people in Thane.
5. December 2015: The Center for Police Integrity headquarters reported an incident at a recent resident facility adjacent to Madras Atomic Power Station where a head constable used official weapons to kill three fellow officers.
6. 2013: leftist guerrillas in North East India obtained uranium ore from milling complex in northeast India, and was using it to strap to a highly explosives before being caught by police. 7. 2009: A nuclear reactor employee in southwest India poisoned dozens of colleagues by taking advantage of the loopholes in plant security.
7. 2008, a criminal gang was caught smuggling low grade uranium from state of India to India to Nepalese border.
8. In this year only in another incident; a gang was caught smuggling uranium near Bangladesh border.
9. December 2006: A container packed with radioactive material was stolen from a fortified research facility in India.
10. 2003: Indian security force caught members of Jamat-Ul- Mujahedeen in a village near Bangladeshi border and confiscated 225 kilogram of milled uranium. Later it was traced to Uranium Mining Complex at Jadogunda. (Jharkhand State)
11. 2001: In west Bengal, police arrested 100 kilogram uranium
12. July j: CBI unearthed a major racket in theft of uranium in Tamil Nadu and seized eight kilogram of material
13. 14. June 1998: West Bengal police arrested and opposition politician carrying 100 kilograms of uranium.
14. November 1994: Meghalaya police seized 2.5 kilograms of uranium. These incidents the series of incidents point towards
India’s weak command & control system and failure to keep strong safety measure near its atomic power plants is consequence of such thefts which endanger the safety and security of the mankind.
What is more surprising is deafening silence by International community over India’s poor record of security measures near its nuclear projects. Pakistan in this current situation has rightly demanded a thorough investigation of the matter as to how such large quantity of uranium could be available outside any state’s control.
Further, these cases are those which are discovered. There could be more cases that may cause havoc to the safety of India, neighboring countries and thus the whole world, if serious action is not taken to prevent such cases of theft. More than this, there are cases in India that several scientists have died or they made suicide attempt or were killed. That is another chapter that is to be revealed as something very wrong is going on in India.
The author is Executive Editor of Monthly Interaction.