New Delhi:
Investigators have not been able to unravel what led to a fire and the deaths of two young scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), home to India's nuclear weapons program.
On Tuesday, two research students were at work in a lab which normally deals with "harmless" chemicals. Officials at BARC suggest a short circuit was fuelled by material used recently to paint the lab. But no inflammable substance has been reported from the lab.
Scientists familiar with the workings of BARC say an explosion of this magnitude should not have happened in this lab.
"It seems like a typical laboratory accident and chemical fire, but the lab houses no cylinders or hydrogen cylinders that could have caught fire and has only limited amounts of chemicals. The trigger for the fire is not known, and it remained confined only to a single lab," says Dr Srikumar Banerjee, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission.
Other experts are worried about more ominous possibilities. "Such an incident has not happened at BARC and insider mischief could be the cause," says Dr A N. Prasad, former director at BARC.
About a month ago, workers at the Kaiga power plant in Karnataka, 700 kilometres south of Mumbai, had a close shave after a drinking water cooler was spiked. 92 nuclear workers were exposed to high levels of a radioactive element called tritium. According to the Department of Atomic Energy, this was a deliberate attempt to cause harm by someone who works at the plant.
No workers were injured, and the case is being investigated by the Intelligence Bureau. Even though every person's entry and exit is recorded, nobody has been arrested.
`The Kaiga incident was easily avoidable had proper surveillance and verification of personnel had been undertaken. It almost seems somebody is testing India's vulnerability in this high impact sector," worries Prasad.