India police seize 4kgs of uranium from smugglers

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Aliph Ahmed

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India police seize 4kgs of uranium from smugglers

PATNA, Feb 19 (Reuters): Police in eastern India have seized around 4 kgs of low-quality uranium after they arrested a gang of smugglers near Nepal's border. The seizure was made in Supaul district in the eastern Indian state of Bihar late on Monday, police said. “We pounced upon them while they all were striking a deal near the border,” senior district police official told Reuters by telephone from Supaul, north of Bihar's state capital Patna. India has a major uranium mine, Jaduguda, in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand. “They are interrogating the arrested smugglers to find out where the seized uranium was actually being supplied,” he said. Police said one Indian and five Nepalese were arrested. (Posted @ 20:10 PST)

http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/19/welcome.htm

With all those ( TEN ) 10+ insurgencies going on in India and this kind of Uranium smuggling going on....

I am worried if the Indian Nuclear Weopons and materials are in safe hands. :shudder


That is ( 8.80 ) pounds !! Enough for a crude Weopon of Mass Destruction !!
 
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eaf-f16

New Member
India police seize 4kgs of uranium from smugglers

PATNA, Feb 19 (Reuters): Police in eastern India have seized around 4 kgs of low-quality uranium after they arrested a gang of smugglers near Nepal's border. The seizure was made in Supaul district in the eastern Indian state of Bihar late on Monday, police said. “We pounced upon them while they all were striking a deal near the border,” senior district police official told Reuters by telephone from Supaul, north of Bihar's state capital Patna. India has a major uranium mine, Jaduguda, in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand. “They are interrogating the arrested smugglers to find out where the seized uranium was actually being supplied,” he said. Police said one Indian and five Nepalese were arrested. (Posted @ 20:10 PST)

http://www.dawn.com/2008/02/19/welcome.htm


With all those ( TEN ) 10+ insurgencies going on in India and this kind of Uranium smuggling going on....

I am worried if the Indian Nuclear Weopons and materials are in safe hands. :shudder


That is ( 8.80 ) pounds !! Enough for a crude Weopon of Mass Destruction !!
Wow! :eek2

Now, imagine if Al-Qaida got their hands on it, manged to make a dirty bomb and blow it up somewhere :shudder. And they say Pakistani nukes aren't safe...:rolleyes:
 
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Aliph Ahmed

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Wow! :eek2

Now, imagine if Al-Qaida got their hands on it, manged to make a dirty bomb and blow it up somewhere :shudder. And they say Pakistani nukes aren't safe...:rolleyes:
You must also not ignore the possibility of how much smuggled Uranium might have gone undetected already !!

What is REALLY worrisome is the fact that this isnt the first time either.
 

Aliph Ahmed

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July 1998: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seized eight kgs of nuclear material from one Arun, a structural engineer in Chennai. The Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (IGCAR) found after analysis that it contained six kgs of natural uranium (U237 and U238) and U 235, which is weapons grade. This led to further seizures of uranium on 31 July 1998 of 31 grams in addition to 2 kg from two other engineers. Analysis showed that the uranium must have been sourced from an atomic research center. The case was buried.


1 May 2000
: Mumbai police seized 8.3 kgs of uranium. The uranium was termed depleted but radioactive by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC). In this case, the source of this uranium theft ? as cited by the police ? was Leelavati hospital in Bandra. However, the hospital authorities maintained that no fissile material/uranium was missing.

13 November 2000: The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the Indian police seized three uranium rods and arrested eight persons on charges of illicit trafficking of nuclear material. The suspicion was that the civil nuclear facilities were vulnerable to such thefts. Earlier, on 7 November 2000, according to the IAEA, the Indian police had seized 57 pounds of uranium and arrested two men on charges of illicit trafficking of radioactive material.

27 August 2001: The West Bengal policed arrested two men with more than 200 grams of semi-processed uranium. Intelligence reports suggested the existence of an active uranium smuggling racket in West Bengal.


http://www.ipcs.org/India_articles2...kValue=1086&country=1016&status=article&mod=a

There were two more " REPORTED " smuggling incidents in 1994 and 2003 in addition to the ones I posted above and which involved Bhaba Atomic Research Center and guess what ? It was reported that the intended destination was Pakistan. :eek:nfloorl:

I will soon post links for that. :D
 
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funtz

New Member
From that IPCS article.

July 1998: long time back, all the necessary measures are in place from a long time now.

1 May 2000: if you want DU, go to Iraq you will get plenty of it.

13 november 2000: again no mention of how radioactive the rod was (Bq or curie), and what was the percentage of U-235.

27 august 2001: what more uranium ore?

what is the nature of all this, how much total radioactivity are we talking about, how much is the percentage of radioactive material?
With out answering these questions what all of the above is a exercise in sensationalism.

well here is some news for you
A report from 1996 about these sort of incidents.
- Chronology of Nuclear Smuggling Incidents
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1996_hr/s960320c.htm
- Seizures of radioactive materials fuel 'dirty bomb' fears
Smugglers have been caught trying to traffic dangerous radioactive material more than 300 times since 2002, statistics from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) show. Most of the incidents are understood to have occurred in Europe.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article663245.ece

All of that depends on how radio active the material really was. In terms of Bq. Or Cu.
And with out citing the real information, all that could be is a hand grenade worth of radioactive material. Hardly the dirty bomb they have in mind.

- In most cases information about nuclear theft or nuclear smuggling shows that trafficked radioactive substances are not nuclear materials and cannot be used to produce nuclear weapons. These are primarily natural uranium and uranium dioxide, enriched to 2-4% of uranium-235 (in some cases with a higher degree of enrichment) as well as sources of ionizing radiation. Sometimes they were intended for resale inside the country, where the materials were obtained, sometimes for smuggling abroad. Such cases pose no threat from the point of nonproliferation and are left beyond the framework of our study.
http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/npsympo/orlov.pdf

So where are the dirty bombs? eh. if that much illegal traffic is going on.



The answer is this even though you have pasted all of this half information from some news reports, one thing that has been left out interestingly, is the real amount of radio active material that is harmful to any degree, let alone fissile in nature(HEU), in pure terms of percentage and radioactivity.

As for the dangers of depleted uranium and natural uranium which have been cited in most of the reports about India (the mines and hospital), are you even aware of the quantity and degree of radioactivity? to make comments about the possibility of use in nuclear bombs/dirty bombs.

And what are the effects of DU and natural uranium on human health?



As for the Insurgencies in India,
- analyze them first, then talk about them.
 
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funtz

New Member
That is ( 8.80 ) pounds !! Enough for a crude Weopon of Mass Destruction !!
Try to get a "education" really, all your posts on India related topics are just cheap takes filled with twisted facts based on reporters, who are as oblivious to all as you are.

Wanna fight the propoganda wars, join the UN, or some international agency, its not worth it in these discussion forums.
 

kams

New Member
Nevertless it 5th time uranium smuggling has been intercepted.

Oh there is a report submited to US congress too. In that report they also mentioned where all that Uranium is going.:D :eek:nfloorl:
 
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