THE foolproof safety and security of radioactive material is the primary responsibility of the fabricating state. Its deliberate and inadvertent mishandling could cause severe repercussions for human beings and the natural environment. The accessibility of radioactive material to non-state actors through the theft of the material from the nuclear facility is a violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540. Besides, it also reveals the need for more legislation and promulgations of the national laws, which were constituted under the direction of UNSC Resolution 1540. Since the passage of the Resolution, the international community has called on states to refrain from supporting non-state actors in their pursuit of radioactive material and to adopt and enforce domestic laws and controls towards this end.
Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the safety and security of nuclear facilities and materials have received serious attention to prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism. Serious efforts have been made to avoid nuclear terrorism by securing the world’s most dangerous materials. On April 28, 2004, in its 4956th meeting, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a non-proliferation resolution by which it decided that all states should refrain from supporting by any means non-state actors that attempt to require, use, or transfer nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their delivery systems. The UNSC unanimously adopted Resolution 1540 (2004) under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The Council also decided that all states would establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of such weapons and means of delivery, particularly for terrorist purposes, including by establishing appropriate rules over the related material and adopting legislative measures in that respect.
India supported the UNSC Resolution 1540 (2004) and implemented some policy measures congruent with the Resolution. Indian Parliament enacted the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act in June 2005. The bill criminalizes proliferation and provides national legislation prohibiting access to nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons by non-state actors. The alarming fact is that despite the institutional and statutory arrangements, India’s safety and security of the country’s nuclear infrastructure needs to be revised due to the recurring incidents of theft and illicit sale of nuclear and other radioactive materials in India.
According to The Times of India (August 10, 2024), at Balthari check post in Kuchaikote, Gopalgan, Patna, police “seized 50 grams of radioactive californium worth 850crore Indian rupees (over $100 million) and arrested three persons in the matter” on August 8, 2024.Gopalganj S.P. Swarn Prabhat said, “The smugglers had been trying to sell this material for several months.” The disturbing catch in the police officer’s admission is that radioactive material was in the possession of smugglers for months. However, the facility operators did not report the missing radioactive californium material. This means that the operators and the safety and security management team were unaware of the missing radioactive californium material or were party to the smugglers. In either case, the illegal possession of 50 grams of radioactive californium, once again, has exposed and alarmed the lapses in the safety and security apparatus of the expanding Indian nuclear industry. Notably, last month, another gang had been caught with a ‘radioactive device’ and ‘radioactive material’ in Dehradun. In 2021, three instances of seizure of stolen radioactive material were reported in India. The repeated thefts and arrests of nuclear smugglers in country highlight frightening reality of India’s ‘Radioactive Bazaar’ and growing black market for radioactive materials.
Californium (CF98) is a synthetic chemical element produced only in a high-flux isotope nuclear reactor. It is the sixth transuranium element—the chemical element with atomic numbers greater than 92- the atomic number of uranium. It has nonthreatening economic and medical applications. For instance, Californium-252 can be used as a neutron source to initiate the nuclear fission process in reactors to generate energy. Moreover, the neutrons released by californium-252 can be used to target specific cancer tumours when other radiation treatments have failed. The illegal possession and mismanagement of the radioactive californium is alarming due to its harmful effects on the human body. According to scientific studies, it slowly oxidizes in the air at room temperature and disrupts red blood cell formation by bioaccumulating exposer’s skeletal tissue. It can enter the body by ingesting contaminated food or drinks or breathing air with suspended particles of element. It can also cause tissue damage externally through gamma-ray emission. Ionizing radiation emitted by californium on bone and in liver can cause cancer.
The availability of radioactive californium to non-state actors in India violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004). It alarms that India’s nuclear industry is vulnerable to nuclear/radiological terrorism. Therefore, the recurring theft of radioactive material from the Indian nuclear facilities is a matter of grave concern for the South Asian states in particular and the international community in general. Ironically, due to their strategic and economic interests, the United States-led West has adopted an apathetic approach toward India’s domestic radioactive bazaar. Indeed, such an indifferent approach toward India’s steadily progressing radioactive material black market due to lapses in the nuclear industry’s safety and security apparatus will have domestic, regional, and international repercussions. To conclude, the theft of radioactive californium triggers a problem without passports—a problem not delimited by borders, such as cybersecurity and climate change. Any illegal radioactive incident anywhere in the world undermines regional and international security. Therefore, it is imperative that international community pursue India to perform its responsibilities under the UNSC Resolution 1540 and streamline its Weapons of Mass Destruction, and their Delivery Systems Act 2005 to prevent the recurring incidents of theft and illicit sale of radioactive materials from its nuclear industry.
—The writer is Prof at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University.
