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V.Balasubramani
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Will India probe ‘Mysterious’ deaths of its nuclear scientists in recent years?
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Bombay High Court asking the court to to constitute a Special Investigating Team to probe mysterious deaths in India’s nuclear establishment over a four year period between 2010 and 2014.
The PIL has been filed based in data compiled under the Right To Information Act by activist Chetan Kothari reports Rediff.
"The data compiled by my client using the RTI Act clearly shows that the reasons for many deaths cited by the various respondents have been categorised as 'unexplained'." Lawyer Ashish Mehta, the advocate for the petitioner told Rediff.
The death of Homi Jhangir Bhabha, Indian nuclear physicist, in 1966 is regarded a mystery by many. Dr. Bhabha had died in an air crash after he publicly said India could produce a nuclear device in a short time. The crash had reportedly taken place in the Swiss Alps near Mt.Blanc and no debris was ever found.
Homi Bhabha’s death and theories around it surely borders on being just conspiracy theories, but there have been deaths in India’s nuclear and atomic energy sector department which are worrying. Between 2009 and 2013 at least 10 employees in department of atomic energy (DAE) lost their lives in murders and mysterious fires.
On June 8, 2009, L. Mahalingam, a 47-year-old senior scientific officer at the Kaiga Atomic Power Station in Karwar, Karnataka, went on a morning walk and never returned. Five days later, his decomposed body was found from the Kali River. As per reports, though police confirmed it as suicide his family refused to believe the police’s theory.
Two young researchers, Umang Singh and Partha Pratim Bag, were burnt to death in a mysterious fire in the modular lab of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre’s (BARC) radiation and photochemistry department on December 30th 2009. Reports say that there was nothing inflammable in the lab, which deepened the mystery. To this day, neither Umang’s family nor Partha’s family know the exact cause of the fire.
The PIL mentions these two deaths and says, “'In any other country, the murder of two Engineers connected to a crucial strategic programme would have created a media storm. But it's rather shocking why such a thing is not happening here. However, the deaths of the two were passed off both by the media as well as by the ministry of defence as a routine accident, with only the ordinary police officer tasked with investigations into the cause of death. The inquiries went nowhere.'
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