AEC chairman Anil Kakodkar (File photo)
NEW DELHI: Former Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Anil Kakodkar has allayed fears that a nuclear device, lost in an avalanche over 60 years ago after a failed attempt to place it near Nanda Devi peak in the Himalayas as part of a mission to monitor Chinese nuke tests, could cause radiation in Uttarakhand and the Ganga.“Absolutely nil,’’ Kakodkar told TOI on Friday when asked specifically if there was a chance of the lost device later causing an environmental disaster in areas near Nanda Devi. The statement assumes significance as reports have resurfaced — some as recent as last month — suggesting the SNAP-19-C device of Oct 1965 could cause radiation. The top-secret mission to install the portable nuclear generator was a joint operation of India’s Intelligence Bureau and the US spy agency CIA.Kakodkar asserted the device was “very strong and, above all, corrosion-free”. “So, as per my understanding, there was an extremely slim chance of it getting breached. I know that the integrity of the nuclear capsule was very good so there was no cause for alarm.”The former Indian nuclear chief explained the deployment further, saying “there was a need for power supply for the mission and nuclear power was the answer”. Led by well-known Indian mountaineer MS Kohli, the mission was essentially a response to a nuclear test Beijing had carried out on Oct 16, 1964, at Lop Nor in China’s Xinjiang region.The challenging project was conceived at a cocktail party at National Geographic Society’s office in Washington DC during a conversation between General Curtis Le May, former head of the US Air Force, and eminent American mountaineer Barry Bishop.The story was first broken in US magazine Outside in April 1978 by an investigative reporter, Howard Kohn. It was titled “The Nanda Devi Caper”. India came to know about the super-secret operation when former PM Morarji Desai made a disclosure about it in Parliament on April 17, 1978.Recently, the Uttarakhand tourism ministry expressed fears that the lost device could prove an environmental hazard and requested PM Narendra Modi to take up the issue with US officials.BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has also brought up the matter, wondering on social media whether the device “was causing environmental havoc”. A former RAW official, RK Yadav, had expressed similar fears, publishing a book on the subject in 2019 called Nuclear Bomb In Ganga.
