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Six kg uranium seized from duo in Madras

In a highly sensitive operation, the Central Bureau of Investigation has seized six kg of uranium worth Rs 300 million from two people in Madras and arrested them.

According to a delayed report, Arun, said to be a mechanical engineer and son of a retired district judge, and Moorthy, were caught red-handed on Monday when they were in possession of the radioactive material packed in a polythene bag, Central Bureau of Investigation sources said.

The duo, who were produced before the tenth metropolitan magistrate in Madras, were remanded to CBI custody.

The CBI, which had sent the material to the Madras Atomic Power Station at Kalpakkam, is questioning the duo regarding the source of the material and the purpose for which it was smuggled.

While one version has it that the material could have been stolen from MAPS, its chairman Dr Placid Rodriquez, who was in Madras in connection with a function, said: "It could not have come from us". He declined to elaborate further.

MAPS sources said the material could not have been smuggled out from the power station as uranium always came to the station in pellet form, encased in zirconium tubes and fuel bundles.

As the material seized was in the form of granules, it could have either come from the Jadagudu mines in Bihar or from the Nuclear Fuel Corporation in Hyderabad, the sources added.

UNI

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