Radioactive metal came from DU

NEW DELHI: If the presence of radioactive cobalt 60 at the Mayapuri scrap market wasn’t shocking enough, the police on Wednesday dropped a bigger bombshell. The lethal metal, which has resulted in one death and critical injuries to many others, came from Delhi University’s chemistry lab and was sold to a scrap dealer in an auction in February this year, they said.

How a radioactive substance could be so callously auctioned off to a scrap dealer raises serious security questions apart from the obvious dangers to the health of citizens . For the moment, radiation experts are investigating whether the scrap dealer, Harcharan Singh Bhola , who bought the gamma cell (or irradiator) for Rs 1.5 lakh, had been told that the 3,000-kg apparatus had a radioactive metal inside it.

In fact, it was from a photograph of the cage of the scrap that Bhola identified it as the equipment he had bought from the Delhi University chemistry lab. The gamma irradiator was lying unused for the last 25 years at the lab. The cobalt-60 was in the apparatus which was bought in 1970 from Canada and was not in use since 1985, police said. The irradiator is used in experiments for analysing the effect of gamma rays on chemicals.

‘‘ We have traced the radioactive material to Delhi University’s chemistry department. One of the pieces of equipment the scrap dealers bought was a gamma irradiator,’’ said DCP (west) Sharad Agarwal.

The scrap dealers dismantled the apparatus and, in the process, the lead covering over the radioactive metal was peeled off. This is what led to radiation exposure, added Agarwal.