Islamabad: According to a report prepared by an international investigation agency the ‘Anti-terrorism squad’, in India’s Maharashtra state, the recently confiscated nuclear material is worth around $2.9 million and an investigation into the case is under way. “We had received information that one person identified as Jigar Pandya was going to illegally sell pieces of uranium substance. So a trap was laid and he was arrested,” the Maharashtra police said. Since, illicit trafficking and theft of nuclear material could lead to nuclear proliferation and the possible construction of improvised nuclear devices or radiological dispersal and exposure devices, measures to detect and respond to such acts are essential components of a comprehensive nuclear security program.
Unfortunately, India has never fostered any such comprehensive nuclear security program. Countless incidents of collective and individual uranium theft and smuggling have taken place in India. Several countries and organisations, including the United States of America and the Organisation for the Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, have so many times expressed their serious reservations on the issue. The imbuing threat of criminal or unauthorised acts involving nuclear and other radioactive material has grown significantly in India – clearly vindicated by the fact that from July 1998 to May 2021, there had been intermittent incidents of such nature.
Providing nuclear safety and security to the nuclear reactors and nuclear plants in order to counter the risks of radioactive radiation as well as the theft of nuclear material remains one of the core objectives of all nuclear states. A very unfortunate fact of the matter is that India has never been serious in providing its nuclear installations the required security measures. Therefore, because of its decimated nuclear security system, India justifiably loses its claim to acquire the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership in future.
In 2010, the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) expressed its “concerns about the terms of the exemption approved by the Nuclear Suppliers Group for India’s nuclear programs.” In a statement, the commission had said that it was concerned that India’s exemption “did not require a strong new commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation objectives and measures.”
The commission promptly recommended that in future any exports of nuclear equipment and technology to countries outside the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) should be accompanied by two conditions – that the recipient country will “not conduct any nuclear test and implement a moratorium on the production of fissile material for weapon purposes, pending the entry into force of a fissile material production ban. Indeed, nuclear India’s vulnerable safety and security record raises questions on the security measures around its nuclear facilities, which at the moment are in the control of a nationalist-religious extremist government. Don’t these instances demonstrate that the country has yet to go a long way to become a responsible nuclear power, aspiring to become a bona- fide member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group?
Since 2012, India has been engaged in nuclear mining exploration. Interestingly, in the seventh review meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety, held last year, India made a declaration that the convention should cover both civilian and military nuclear power plants. Needless to say, in recent years, India’s nuclear security policy has come under increasing scrutiny. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), in its Security Index, painted a very gloomy picture of India regarding nuclear security measures. There is an inevitable need for the atomic energy agencies to fashion appropriate training programmes that should involve everyone from a lab janitor and researcher to the control room operators, technicians and security guards, securing the Nuclear Suppliers Group directions and instructions.
Hats off to China that it justifiably vetoed against India’s candidature for the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the UN Security Council just because of its non-serious attitude towards the standard security measures. It is also a pathetic fact that the major powers including the US, United Kingdom and France, simply overlooked the sensitivity of the matter intentionally and voted in favour of India’s entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and UNSC as a member.officialnews.pk
