Dehradun: Illegal sale, purchase of suspected radioactive device, 5 arrested

Dehradun: Five people were arrested on Friday for allegedly being involved in the illegal sale and purchase of a suspected radioactive device, police said here.

They said two of them were nabbed from Dehradun’s Rajpur area, two from Madhya Pradesh and one from Delhi.

A case was registered against them under relevant sections of the law for keeping and buying a substance that endangers life, police officials said, adding that a radiography camera was found in their possession.

One of them told police that he bought the device 10 months ago from a Saharanpur resident and had come to Dehradun to arrange for its sale, the officials said.

Police have sealed the room of a flat in the Brook and Woods Society on Rajpur Road and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) has been called in for an investigation, the officials said.

An SDRF team confirmed the presence of a radioactive substance in the flat, they said.

Police said devices like the one found in the possession of those arrested are manufactured by the BARC in Mumbai and are used in the field of medicine and to stop leakage in large pipelines.

Considering the sensitivity of the matter, an emergency team from the atomic power station located in Narora, Uttar Pradesh, reached Dehradun and tested the device for about four to five hours.

Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh said the device would be sent to the BARC for investigation.