Daily Times

Sir: Both Iraq and Syria were attacked on charges that their regimes were making weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to use on other states or their own civilian populations. Iraq showed us that these allegations could be fabricated.

With all this happening, the West lost focus on Japanese cult, Aum Shinrikyo, which was actively pursuing WMDs. From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, Aum Shinrikyo spent tens of millions of dollars on its WMD program.Aside from unconfirmed attacks, the cult carried out 20 confirmed attacks between 1990 and 1995. 13 of these attacks employed chemical agents and seven using biological agents.

The cult even tried to hire nuclear scientists and buy Soviet nuclear warheads. It purchased a vast sheep farm in Western Australia to mine uranium and study effects of chemical-biological (botulinium toxin, anthrax, and cholera and Q fever agents) on sheep.

The cult’s 40 followers traveled to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in October 1992 to `render’ medical aid to Ebola victims (actually to steal samples of Ebola virus). Between June 1994 to 1995, the cult murdered several people, including three `hostile’ judges with sodium cyanide and sarin-gas attacks.

Unfortunately, the world remained unruffled when computers with sensitive data were stolen from India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The computer contained feedback on experimentation on Trishuls and Agni-III Inter-Continental-Ballistic missile (under test for extending range from 3000 to 5000 kilometers).

India shrugs off thefts or accidents in its defence labs as `just routine’. They do not look into the possibility of theft by terrorists or `cover-up to steal data. For instance, 19 top-secret computers belonging to DRDO were stolen on October 6, 2003. The stolen computers, contained strategic data vital to India’s nuclear security, all codes and cyphers. Today, they could be with anyone.

Earlier, radioactive material worth Rs.1.5 million was stolen from the Tata laboratory at Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) on August 15. On June 20, 2018, another blast took place at DRDO’s High Energy Material Research Laboratory in Pune’s Hinjawadi area.

The world needs to look into what happened with these stolen computers, and keep an eye on groups like Aum Shinrikyo. All states must show maturity and responsibility about safeguarding sensitive fissile material and other items which could be used to create WMDs.

MA JAVED

Islamabad

Published in Daily Times, July 16^th 2018.