Uranium smuggling from India goes on
Rabail Iftikhar Ch
The world is applying double standards on the issue of proliferation, theft of uranium and nuclear fissile material from India as Indian state Meghalaya Police has experienced two highly dangerous cases of uranium theft in not more than six months. According to newspaper reports, the state police arrested five individuals on charges of smuggling uranium. The confiscated packet bore a printed inscription of the Indian Atomic Energy Department. The samples of the seized packet have been sent for laboratory tests. Earlier in May this year the Meghalaya Police also had arrested five people for allegedly possessing 1 kg uranium.
The US and India have already entered into civilian nuclear deal while Russia, Australia, Canada, Israel and other countries are delivering fresh nuclear fuel destined for two Indian reactors. Yet the reports of theft of enriched uranium from India are continuously being ignored. Russia started selling nuclear fuel to India in early 2001. At that time, the US State Department accused Russia of violating its NSG commitments, urging Moscow to cancel the deal. But the time has changed, the world of America has changed, thanks to the double stand standards.
The majority of American people including lawmakers, policy makers and think-tanks opposed the Bush administrations decision to give India civilian nuclear plants on the basis that India has been involved in nuclear proliferation in the past despite its claims of water tight control on the assets. They cite a number of examples containing reports of exporting nuclear know-how and supplying uranium to other countries. Times of India quoting Press Trust of India reported from Guwahati on on April 12, 2006 that one kilogram of enriched uranium, suspected to have been stolen from a government facility in Meghalaya, was seized from three men trying to sell it. A packet containing the uranium bore the marking Department of Atomic Energy, Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research Centre, North Eastern Region, Shillong. Two more markings on the packet, explosive number 2000/LG/27-D and B/337 Enriched Uranium, indicated that the substance was high grade uranium used as fuel at nuclear power stations. Three men, according to the report, who had earlier asked for crores of rupees for the uranium, were approached by police personnel posing as customers on Tuesday.
The men, after bargaining, agreed to sell the uranium for Rs 50 lakh. The three persons, identified as Dhiren Barali, Krishna Das and Nirod Das, were arrested and booked under the Explosives Act. A case was registered against them at the Panbazar police station. The uranium was later sent to a forensic laboratory for tests.
According to the Asian Age of November 23, 2005, Sridhar Krishnaswami reported that a federal court found two defense companies in New England along with their top executives guilty of violating US export control laws by selling technology that helped India improve its Agni medium range nuclear missile. The defense company executives Walter Lachman and Maurice Subillia Jr. were sentenced to three years of probation. The court also imposed a fine of $250,000 on the company Fiber Materials Inc. Fiber Materials of Maine and its subsidiary materials international along with the top executives were found guilty of conspiring to export a control panel from the US to Indias Defense Research Development Laboratory (DRDL) in April 1988. The panel was needed to operate a production skize hot isostatic press.
The control panel required a special export license from the US department of commerce, and no such license was obtained by the defendants. The control panel and the isostatic press were sold to the defense laboratory which was developing Indias principal nuclear-capable ballistic missile Agni, according to the case sheet. The contract under which this equipment was supplied was between the defendants and DRDL and was signed by the project director of Agni. In 1991-92, the two companies directed employees to travel to India to install and make fully operational the carbon-carbon processing equipment in India.
With the earlier reports of arrest of Dubai based Indian national, Ravinra Singh a RAW agent for trying to sell Indian atomic secrets to foreign powers it was confirmed that Indias nuclear program is susceptible to being peddled for a price. World intelligence agencies have been gathering proofs as to how India became the hub of world nuclear proliferation. Ravindra mysteriously disappeared to the US and remained untraceable since then. As a face-saving measure Indian intelligence officials had falsely been informing the media that Ravindra had no information detrimental to Indian security interests, which created further doubts. Deeply perturbed over the development, India asked the United States to withdraw sanctions it had imposed against two Indian nuclear scientists accused by Washington of transferring technology for Weapons of Mass Destruction and missile secrets to Iran.
According to Hindustan Times of April 10, 2004 Indian police arrested two Indian nationals with 850 grams of Uranium. Two persons were arrested in Guwahati on April 7 for possessing an explosive like substance, which could possibly be high grade uranium ore. The police said that Raj Kumar Mishra, a Gorakhpur resident, was arrested with 850 grams of the blakish-grey substance. Later Mishra led the police to Polasiv who hails from Meghalaya and was charged for selling the substance to Mishra for Rs 15 lakh. A sample of the substance was sent to Bhaba Atomic Research Centre for verification, according to the report. The suspicions about the material being Uranium was strengthened by the fact that the seller belonged to Meghalaya which is known for production of Uranium ore, said DSP Utpal Bayan. The Domiasiat area of Moghalaya has substantial deposits of high grade uranium. According to police the arrested man, Raj Kumar Mishra, confessed that he had come to purchase the high-grade uranium.
In another report police in the northeastern state of Assam had uncovered a major racket involving theft of radioactive uranium by arresting two persons. A police spokesman said they had seized one kg of uranium from two youths in Assams main city of Guwahati with the packet bearing a printed inscription, Department of Atomic Energy, Directorate of Explosive and Research Centre, Northeast Region, Shillong. On specific information that the two youths were in possession of some suspicious powdered explosives, a team of police personnel disguised as customers and struck a deal for buying the uranium at a price of Rs 1.5 million, said a senior police official. In the packet it was written, Not for sale, Government use only, Explosives no 2000/27 D, Uranium 325 (5), Made in India. Investigations are on to ascertain how and where from they got hold of the uranium and where the consignment was destined for, said the official. We are also looking at possible nexus between the gang and militants or other agents inimical to Indian interests. A team of senior police official has since left for Meghalayas capital Shillong for follow up investigations with Atomic Energy officials.
According to surveys by Indias Atomic Energy Department, there could be up to 10,000 tonnes of uranium in Meghalayas Domiasiat area - by far the largest and richest sandstone- type deposits available in the country. The ores are spread over a mountainous terrain in deposits varying from eight to 47 meters from the surface in and around Domiasiat, 135 kilometer west of Shillong After initial operations, the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) was forced to wind up mining in the mid-90s following a string of violent opposition from villagers and other pressure groups in Meghalaya who alleged emission of radioactive uranium was posing serious health hazards. Published in local English daily on April 27, 2006, a Reuters report said that Russia has delivered fresh nuclear fuel destined for two Indian reactors.
The Russian delivery, which experts say violates international rules, comes as the US Congress is considering whether to approve an agreement whereby India would be allowed to obtain nuclear fuel, reactors and technology from the United States and other countries for the first time in three decades. The Russian fuel for the two Tarapur power plants has been delivered but it has not yet been used. Its in a storage facility, a senior US official told Reuters. This kind of activity should not take place, in our view, until the NSG has acted. Its not a good precedent, he said. The US has asked India to refrain from using the fuel and believes this request will be honored.
The 45-nation NSG has not yet altered its rules to permit nuclear transfers to India and is not expected to do so until Congress votes. That could take months because of concern that the US-India civilian nuclear co-operation agreement could undermine efforts to control nuclear proliferation. Russia has clearly violated NSG rules, Daryl Kimball, director of the non-profit Arms Control Association, said of Moscows nuclear fuel delivery. This is a further step towards the erosion of the NSG guidelines and the United States must speak out more strongly against Russia and India pursuing this. Democratic Rep Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a leading critic of the US-India deal, expressed concern that the agreement had pretty much neutralized the ability of the US to block this type of shipment. The United States cant plausibly tell other nations not to ship nuclear material or technology to India if we are preparing to do so ourselves, he said. As a member of the NSG, which controls global nuclear trade, Russia should not supply fuel to countries like India, which have not signed the NPT.
The uranium fuel for Tarapur was delivered recently following a Russia-India agreement announced last month. Even the US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is negotiating the American deal with India, said that Russia should delay the transfer until Congress and the NSG had formally changed their rules. In supplying the fuel, Russia had invoked an NSG safety exemption clause which allowed fuel transfers if there were reason to believe that starving a reactor of fuel could result in a nuclear hazard.
But many non-proliferation experts have rejected this argument, contending that in the presence of safety concerns, reactors should be shut down, not refuelled. Many in the US believe that Indias Tarapur nuclear reactor could be a safety problem in the coming months. For the world community at large the uranium theft reports must be the case of great concern. The criticism coming out from inside the US must not confine to opposing the civilian nuclear deal, but mounting pressure on New Delhi to eschew the path of proliferating nuclear material. It is upon the civilized world to go for nuclear disarmament and converting nuclear facilities into acquiring self-reliance of energy generation under well guaranteed safeguards.
The powerful must see the under developed with one eye and do justice without discrimination. The sin of not taking notice of Indias proliferation attempts may cost the world very dearly.
---
Uranium smuggling from India goes on - Newspaper online edition - Article
..Already Pakistan is getting slowly isolated from the western world, image of akistan is tarnishing in dust... And about the Deal.. Oh come on.. Critics always come in everyways... there will always be someone to say that. Americans are not blind enough to sign a deal with india and india is not stupid enough to sign a deal with america if it dint fructify. Okay if it was a waste why did pakistan plead to america for the same status?
You could have used the "Joke" word 5 more times and still it wouldn't count as a joke. I'm just a messenger. Answer the allegations instead.
