LAHORE: The recent claim by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), an American arms control organization, that Pakistan has expanded two of its uranium exploration sites in Rawalpindi and Dera Ghazi Khan in a bid to bolster the destructive power of its atomic arsenal seem faulty as the Baghalchur uranium mine in Dera Ghazi Khan had been closed down almost a decade ago way back in 1999 after it ran out of the uranium deposits.
Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington-based arms control organisation, has claimed that commercial satellite imagery obtained by Digital Globe, shows that Pakistan has expanded its uranium enrichment sites in Rawalpindi and Dera Ghazi Khan which are crucial to its nuclear programme. According to the ISIS claims, commercial images reveal a major expansion of a chemical plant complex near DG Khan that produces uranium hexafluoride and uranium metal, two materials used to produce nuclear weapons. “All together, these recent expansion activities indicate that Pakistan is indeed progressing in a strategic plan to improve the destructiveness and deliverability of its nuclear arsenal,” the ISIS findings said.
However, knowledgeable circles in the Pakistani establishment have refuted the ISIS claims about expanding the infrastructure of the Baghalchur uranium mill, also known as BC-1, which used to produce yellowcake, saying the said site was officially closed down by the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) on November 30, 1999. These circles say the uranium deposits at the Baghalchur site, which had a capacity of 25 MT of uranium per year, had exhausted in 1999 and thus the question of doubling the size of the Baghalchur compound simply does not arise. To a question, the sources said the Nuclear Track Detection Laboratory of Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) is now trying to explore a few other sites in the Nangar Aani, Khura Murghanzai and Pitoksori Gorakh areas of Dera Ghazi Khan.
The ISIS has claimed in its recent report that Pakistan has cleared a new plot of land adjacent to the largest of the three compounds on Baghalchur uranium mill site, which will double the size of the compound. The expansion includes new industrial buildings, anti-aircraft installations and several new settling ponds among the three compounds that were identified by the ISIS in commercial satellite imagery. However, the Pakistani authorities question the authenticity of the ISIS findings by pointing out the fact that the US arms control institute has itself admitted in the same report: “The current status of the Baghalchur uranium site is unknown…The expansion of the facilities at DG Khan is more difficult to assess because of uncertainties about the activities conducted at this site related to nuclear weapons production.”
The Pakistani authorities are amazed at the negligence of the ISIS staffers, saying it is a known fact that the Baghalchur site was being used by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission between 1978 and 1999 to take out uranium before the mine was closed down. They regretted that the ISIS authorities did not even take into account Pakistani media reports about the Baghalchur site now being used as a dumping ground for deadly nuclear waste. Although the uranium exploration activity at the Baghalchur site has already been stopped, serious concerns are being raised by residents of the area as well as their elected representatives over the hazards from the radioactive waste left there.
As the anger amongst the local population grew over the government apathy, the dumping site was targeted with a mortar attack on May 15, 2006, allegedly by Baloch insurgents, sparking a large fire in the woods surrounding Baghalchur establishment. Three days later, on May 19, 2006, Senator Sardar Jamal Khan Leghari of the PML-Q accused on the floor of the house the PAEC of dumping nuclear waste in the Baghalchur village of Dera Ghazi Khan, without observing international safety standards, and causing many deaths in the area. Speaking on a point of order in the Senate, Jamal Leghari said the PAEC authorities had used the Baghalchur site for uranium extraction for almost two decades. And now they are using the same place for dumping nuclear waste which was affecting around 50,000 poor people who live in scores of hamlets situated in and around Baghalchur, several of whom had already died.
Responding to Jamal Khan Leghari’s outburst, the PAEC spokesman had claimed on May 21, 2006 that the waste was dumped underground in tunnels and there was no radioactive affect of it on the area population and its environs. The issue was later taken up by some residents of the area with the Supreme Court which had directed the authorities to take additional pre-emptive steps given the potentially grave threat posed to public health. But it is astonishing that the ISIS simply ignored all these developments which clearly show that the Baghalchur uranium site has already been abandoned for all practical purposes.
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