ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan has voiced serious concern over reports about the seizure of more than seven kilograms of natural uranium, ‘highly radioactive and dangerous to human life,’ from unauthorized persons in India.
“Security of nuclear materials should be the top priority for all Countries,” the Foreign Office Spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said on Saturday while responding to media queries on the seizure of natural uranium in India.
The Spokesperson said that there is a need for a thorough investigation of the matter as to how such a sizeable quantity of uranium could become available outside any state control and identify the gaps which made this possible.
Last Wednesday, the Indian police seized more than seven kilograms of natural uranium worth around $2.9 million and arrested two men in the western Maharashtra State for “illegally possessing” the highly radioactive substance.
A Case was registered under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 against both the accused including 27-year-old Jigar Jayesh Pandya and 31-year-old Abu Tahir Afzal Hussain Choudhary after a report from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai confirmed that the seized material was highly radioactive.
It may be mentioned that in the year 2017, 9 kg of Uranium of recovered from the Indian Uranium Black Market that is a throbbing business, and the Nepali border is used to smuggle out Uranium to the international market. In March 2021, Nepali Police raided a house with 2.5 kg of Uranium in Ranipokhari and recovered 2.5 Kg of Uranium smuggled from India.
India has become the most dangerous country for Uranium proliferation and the Indian Black Market had its contacts in countries of the former Soviet Union. More details are awaited in the recent cases of Uranium proliferation.
