AERB To Consider Action Against Delhi University

Fresh Fears Over Cobalt-60 Pencils

India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) will meet soon to decide on the action to be taken against Delhi University in the wake of the recent cobalt-60 scare in the city.

The board has received a response to its request for information from the university after an irradiation machine containing the cobalt-60 was sold to a scrap dealer in the city. A number of cobalt-60 pencils are still missing.

The resultant leak of cobalt-60 caused the death of one person and the hospitalisation f seven others.

Dr Ompal Singh, secretary of the AERB, said it was ‘‘too early’’ to comment on the the university’s response. However, senior officers at AERB and BARC said they had found “discrepancies”.

‘‘We are waiting for the police to investigate the auction and those involved in it. We will collaborate the two reports before taking a final decision,’’ a board member told The Times of India.

An AERB team visited Delhi University on Monday to check levels of uranium near the university’s science laboratories.

‘‘We have received a communication from the Mumbai headquarters of AERB stating that searches are still going on. A final report will be sent to us only when the entire process is over,’’ said DCP (North) Sagarpreet Hooda.

It is believed that the lead cover of the gamma irradiator -- in which the radioactive metal was kept -- was melted at a furnace at Rewari in Haryana by a scrap dealer and there are fears that some of the cobalt-60 pencils had fallen into the “wrong hands”.

The Delhi government has directed all medical establishments in the city to dispose of radioactive material strictly as per rules and regulations framed by the AERB.

New Delhi Police Find Source of Cobalt-60

Source Was Scrapped Machine from University

Police in New Delhi Police said it has traced the origin of the radioactive Cobalt 60, which has led to the death of one person and the serious illness of seven others, to scrap sold by the Department of Chemistry at the University of Delhi in February.


According to the police, the Cobalt-60 was in a Gamma Irradiator, which the University's Department of Chemistry bought in 1968 from Canada and which had been in disuse since 1985.


The radioactive material was found in a metal scrap shop in the Mayapuri district of the city. The shop owner and his assistants are among those affected by exposure to it.


The irradiator was sold off with other unused material in an auction on 26 February this year, when it was bought by a scrap dealer in Mayapuri, Harcharan Singh Bhola. He, in turn, removed the iron part from the cell and sold the lead to another scrap dealder, Giriraj Gupta.

Gupta further dismantled the irradiator and sold the lead to other scrap dealers but keeping part of the iron scrap himself. This was removed by Bhola reached Deepak Jain through Rajender, who died on Monday.

On April 8 the city authorities were informed about people suffering burns and other symptoms associated with exposure to a radioactive source.


Experts from the Department of Atomic Energy and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) were ultimately able to recover and secure eight sources of different intensity from the shop as well as a godown owned by Jain. Two more sources were later recovered from the shop of Gupta.

Indian Man Dies Of Radiation

Doctors 'Give Up' On Other Patients

Doctors treating radiation exposure patients at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi say they have given up hope after the death of one of the patients.

Rajender Prasad, 35, a worker at a shop in the city’s Mayapuri scrap market, died after multiple organ failure at around 9.30pm local time at the AIIMS on Monday. He was moved there on April 13 from the city’s DDU hospital.

"He developed bilateral pneumonia and was exhibiting signs of kidney and liver function impairment. He was put on a ventilator on April 24," a doctor treating the radiation victims said.

According to doctors, another radiation victim Ram Kalap is critical and his blood counts have reduced significantly. He has been put on prophylactic antibiotic and anti-fungal agents.

"We have given up hope on other patients. It's only a wait and watch situation," says the doctors treating the radiation exposure patients.

"After one patient's death yesterday, all other patients are very depressed, we are now counselling them," the doctors added.

"There is hardly any literature on how to deal with radiation patients, that's our handicap. Cancer of the thyroid and blood pose serious danger for these patients," the doctors added.

Four other radiation exposure patients are still admitted in AIIMS, while Deepak Jain, the owner of the scrap shop from where radioactive material Cobalt-60 was recovered, is at the Apollo Hospital. Another patient Ajay Jain is undergoing treatment at Army Research and Referral Hospital.

Ten sources of Cobalt-60 had been found in the Mayapuri scrap market earlier this month and eight persons were hospitalised. One of them has since been discharged.

New Delhi Police Yet To Trace Origin Of Cobalt-60

Police Waiting To Question Shop Owner

Police in New Delhi have yet to trace the origin of Cobalt-60, the radioactive material that caused serious injuries to six persons in a scrap market in the city on Friday.

"There is nothing concrete. We are waiting for Deepak Jain to regain his health. We are also waiting for reports from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and other agencies," Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Sharad Aggarwal told a news agency that officers were waiting for shop owner Deepak Jain to regain his health before questioning him as to the origin of the cobalt..

Mr Aggarwal said that nobody knew Mr Jain had bought the cobalt. "Normally, scrap dealers never makes public their source of scrap as it will affect their business. So, nobody knows from where he bought it," he said.

AERB experts safely removed eight bunches of metal scraps containing sources of the Cobalt-60 radioactive isotope from Mr Jain’s shop and transported the material to the Narora Atomic Power Station in Uttar Pradesh.

"Investigations are now in progress to ascertain the source of the radioactive cobalt-60, which was recovered from the scrap in a shop in Mayapuri," S A Hussain, Head of Radiological Safety division of AERB, said.

Mr Jain is fighting for his life at the Apollo Hospital while five others -- Gaurav, Rajendra Prasad, Ramjee Yadav, Ram Kalap and Himanshu Jain -- have been admitted to the AIIMS where all are being kept in an isolation ward.

Radioactive Material Found In New Delhi Scrap Market

Material Thought To Be Cobalt-60

Scientists in India are probing the presence of a radioactive material at a New Delhi scrap market.

The material, which was discovered on Thursday night, has caused injuries to five people with two in a critical condition in a local hospital.

Police cordoned off the Mayapuri scrap market in the city and sealed all nearby shops while nuclear scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Narora Atomic Power Plant in Bulandshahr were involved in an operation to identify the source of the radioactive material.

"The experts have identified the material as Cobalt-60. They have also identified six sources of the material from the scrap market," National Disaster Management Authority member and former BARC director B B Bhattacharya said. “Cobalt-60 is used in fabrication work, especially for welding steel. It is also used in radiotherapy for treating cancer.”

However, Cobalt-60 is also one of the nine materials suitable for radiological use for making a so-called ‘dirty bomb’. The metal, along with Caesium-137 surpasses uranium and thorium for its radioactive strength.

The presence of the nuclear material – and in such a public place - has caused fear within India’s security establishment with Prime Minister P Chidamabram being been briefed about the incident.

Experts say while a nuclear weapon obtains its explosive power from nuclear fission, a dirty bomb involves no nuclear fission, and is used like a conventional weapon.

Local scrap dealers said the owner of the shop, Deepak Jain, and his employees Ram Ji Yadav, Ram Kalk Yadav, Gaurav and Rajender Prasad, fell unconscious while they were cutting metal and a white fluid oozed out causing severe burns. Mr Jain had brought the scrap from Faridabad, through Mr Prasad, on 12 March. Mr Prasad first tried to cut open the waste but this led to the withering away of his fingernails. Mr Jain then put the material away but by 25 March he began to have headaches, his hair began to fall out and his skin started to show signs of decay. After consulting a doctor his skin began to turn black and he was admitted into New Delhi’s Apollo Hospital on 4 April. The radiation safety officer at Apollo informed India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) the next day and two officials were subsequently sent to Khajan Basti at the Mayapuri scrap market.

Doctors say that Mr Jain's bone marrow is significantly suppressed and his condition is quite serious. The condition of the four labourers has also been deteriorating since Friday afternoon and they have been shifted from the city’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Another trader, Himanshu Jain, is also at AIIMS.

Meanwhile local police are trying to find out if the material originated from abroad.