World | India
Police may have seized uranium
The Meghalaya police said on Saturday they were investigating if the powdery substance seized earlier this week was actually enriched uranium.
- IANS
- Published: 00:11 May 4, 2008
Shillong: The Meghalaya police said on Saturday they were investigating if the powdery substance seized earlier this week was actually enriched uranium.
Five people were arrested by the police for allegedly possessing a kilogramme of a powdery substance suspected to be uranium which they tried to sell for a whopping Rs2.6 million (Dh235,421).
A police spokesman said they seized packets from four youths late Thursday with the packets bearing a printed inscription of the Indian Atomic Energy Department (IAED).
"On specific information that the youths were in possession of some suspicious powdery substance, a team of police personnel disguised as customers struck a deal for buying the uranium," senior police official Vivek Syiem said.
One more youth was arrested and the five were booked under the Explosives Act and remanded to seven days' police custody.
"We are not sure what the powdery substance is. We have sent the packet for forensic examination to ascertain if it is uranium or something else," the official said.
Serious thing
"If the forensic results prove that the powdery substance is enriched uranium and stolen from the atomic energy department, then it is a very serious thing," said another senior police official investigating the case.
Police arrested two youths last year in Assam's main city of Guwahati with a similar consignment with almost the same inscriptions like the seizure made Thursday.
According to surveys by IAED, there could be up to 375,000 tonnes of uranium in Meghalaya's Domiasiat area, a mining district where the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd stopped mining in the mid-1990s following violent opposition from villagers and other pressure groups.
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