The visit of two foreign journalists to the high-security Bhabha Atomic research Centre (BARC) here has raised the hackles of the security establishment.
The visit of two foreign journalists to the high-security Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc) at Trombay has raised the hackles of the country’s security establishment.
The Union home ministry has asked Barc director Srikumar Banerjee to explain how the journalists were allowed to photograph the facility during the visit. Was formal permission granted for filming, the ministry asked, an official source said.
In his reply, Banerjee has reportedly said that formal permission was neither sought nor granted but explained that the journalists were allowed to take photographs only from the outside and that they were accompanied at all times by Barc security personnel. Banerjee has further said that external photographs of the building were easily available on the internet.
The explanation does not seem to have satisfied the ministry, the source said. Neither has Banerjee’s contention that the authorities should not be overly sensitive about commonly available photographs.
Efforts to elicit a reaction from Banerjee failed as he refused to comment on the matter. But a senior Barc official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such visits by foreign journalists had been taking place for years. “Visits by foreign journalists for interviews is not a new thing,” the official said. “We keep a complete check on them and it is always an escorted visit.”
The official said all checks were in place this time, too. “The foreign journalists took pictures of the reactor from outside, which are already there on our website. All the while, we had security personnel as well as senior scientists escorting them.”
Government agencies have been concerned about Barc’s vulnerability after it was listed as a possible target of the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba. American terrorist David Coleman Headley had admitted during interrogation that he had carried out reconnaissance of Barc and given its GPS coordinates to his handlers in Pakistan.
Headley, 49, who has been under arrest in the US since October last year, had travelled to Chembur and Trombay several times and filmed the exit and entry points of Barc besides the movement of employees, the source said. The security around the nuclear installation has been tightened, the source said.
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