7 more persons arrested with Uranium in India
Islamabad, June 04 (KMS): The arrest of seven other persons by Indian police along with 6KG of uranium worth crores of rupees has once again raised questions about the safety of highly radioactive material in India.
A special police team recovered 6kg of uranium from seven people following raids at different places in Jharkhand’s Bokaro city and arrested the accused.
The police said the accused, suspected to be part of a gang involved in illegal uranium trade, were searching for customers and had fixed its price at Rs 50 lakh/kg.
As per experts one kg of uranium sells for around Rs 18 crore in the global market.
The police are also investigating to ascertain whether the arrested accused have any links with a similar racket busted by Maharashtra.
Earlier last month, Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested two persons along with over seven kilos of natural uranium worth crores of rupees.
Acting on specific information, the Nagpada unit of ATS had apprehended a 27-year-old Thane resident, Jigar Pandya, with some small pieces of the valuable substance. Pandya was allegedly trying to sell it illegally and was in search of a possible customer. The ATS after investigation also arrested another person, Abu Tahir.
The natural uranium is “highly radioactive” used generally by nuclear power plants. It is also used in making nuclear bombs.
Ironically, the world community has maintained a criminal silence on the sale of uranium in the open market in India. The repeated incidents of recovery of nuclear substance show India’s irresponsible behavior as the country can be cause of world nuclear catastrophe. The UN Security Council must call for an impartial investigation into the matter.
