India's Nuclear Scientists Keep Dying Mysteriously | Hacker News Reader

India's Nuclear Scientists Keep Dying Mysteriously

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221 pointsdsr1254 comments

Logically, either they are: 1) Being killed off by agents representing the interests of other countries - likely aided by Indian politicians.

2) Being killed by India's own agents because they are suspected of leaking sensitive data and information.

Could it also be they are dying of radiation poisoning?

Barry Eisler writes (fiction) about a contract killer who makes deaths look like natural causes. (www.barryeisler.com)

There's a pretty good film from Hong Kong about that too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1202514/

Edit: I misremembered: it's from Hong Kong, not South Korea.

The IMDB link says it's a HK film, and the actors listed are HK stars.

Thanks, edited. It was silly of me not to check when I linked to it.

Hulu seems to have a lot of Korean content, but the first time I try to seek something specific out, it comes up empty :(

So I was wrong about it being Korean (it's from Hong Kong -- I just misremembered), but it is on Netflix, as are a bunch of great Korean movies.

Awesome, thanks! Added it to the queue.

(I think my favorite Korean film to date has been The Good, The Bad and The Weird.)

One of the reports mentioned their dead bodies being found left on railroad tracks. That... doesn't sound like radiation poisoning to me.

Unless the rails are super radioactive.

I tried to imagine someone being poisoned by Polonium beforehand, but that results in a rather slow death, not an unmarked corpse that can be dumped on the tracks.

They were dead first though. I thought of that as disposing of the evidence to make it look like suicide.

It depends on how you get poisoned, but unless you suffer straight up burned to death (i.e. nuclear bomb), it seems that most of them result in slow deaths.

Certainly not gross radiation poisoning as the symptoms of that (swelling, lesions) are pretty unmistakable. Mild poisoning like polonium, if done over months or years can be harder to spot.

What I find interesting is that in the US the government is exceptionally diligent about pursuing the deaths of people it cares about (scientists working on state projects, politicians, Etc.) which the FBI (national police) investigates rather than the local police force.

Clearly these are people who are of interest to India's national defense (nuclear submarine engineers?) is there not a national police that would make it their mission to solve these questions?

Perhaps this is due to a more decentralized security apparatus in India?

This is an open question, as I don't know the answer but I am aware that in very large countries it is hard for a central government to control the provinces. Same in China.

That is a possible explanation. In the US the FBI's investigative powers supercedes that of the local police, and they are centrally managed from Washington DC with satellite offices in the various cities around the country. They are chartered with investigations that would cross state boundaries typically and are the investigative arm of the Department of Justice. The Russians and Canadians have similar services (examples of 'large countries') as does China.

I meant large in terms of people. It's hard to keep tabs of remote areas, but even harder to keep track of large groups of folks. This is why China's the best example.

Not fiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimes_involving_radioactive_s...

Right outta the article

3) Inside job

"[Whistleblowers] are getting scared of being involved in the nuclear industry in India,"

I interpreted that as "people are blowing the whistle on being scared to work for the nuclear industry", not "people who are known for being whistleblowers are now scared to work for the industry"

The Indian Strategic Command is led by a 3 Star General [1] so the position mentioned in the article that the police failed to find anything is load of BS. This type of stuff is taken care of by Intelligence agencies, and if there was anything extraordinary here, the repercussions must have reached this side of the border, i.e., Pakistan.

In fact, I find this whole mentioning of Pakistan twice in the article offensive. If there was even a whiff of Pakistani intelligence work here, the whole world would have erupted.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Nuclear_Command

Actually, Pakistan is mentioned once in the context of being a possible suspect, as are the USA and China. The other mention is to state that only the Pakistani media initially took an interest in the death of one scientist, which is hardly some kind of negative accusation.

To add to this, it would not be in India's best interest to publicize any security issue within its nuclear complex.

Especially if that information would inflame a nuclear neighbor, with which there is already confrontational history.

I am also not sure how mentioning a competing nation that has been in direct dispute with the target nation is offensive, specifically in the context of listing nations that may have interest in the issue.

I think everyone is used to Indians blaming Pakistanis and Pakistanis blaming Indians as the default case. Crying wolf and all that.

Nothing to see here, please move along.

Why is it offensive? You seem pretty aware of the history there.. if it's foreign spies, ISI has to lead the list of possible suspects, right? They've got the motive, means and a history.

I'm American and I wouldn't be upset at speculation that the US was killing Iranian nuclear scientists. I'd be like "Well, yeah, it's always a possibility".

You underestimate the amount of jingoism among anonymous people on the internet :)

Sadly such things go largely unreported or unnoticed in India. The country is bleeding and we are caught up in a first-aid circus. I think the social & financial gap in India is playing havoc on its future. We simply can't reach a consensus on fundamental day-to-day problems.

How is a response which is basically "such things" just happen in India any more insightful than the police response?

I'm not trivializing anything. But it's hard to get past basics like lack of water/electricity, soaring food prices, safety on roads etc. before you have time to help out others.

Your response just proves what I said about not being able to reach consensus on the real problems. Nitpicking isn't a solution.

Very interesting.

Coincidentally, I randomly spent about two hours Saturday morning reading about the Indian nuclear program. Did you know the Indian program went 24 years between the first test in 1974 and the second test in 1998? It was due to a shift in priorities during the late 70s and early 80s, as well as the formation of the Nuclear Supplier's Group which put increased restrictions on the exportation of nuclear technologies. Anyways, I was under the impression that everyone in the nuclear club sans North Korea/Israel/Pakistan just went about testing a whole bunch of designs for the fun of it after the first test. In total, India has tested only 6 detonations.

Not surprised with the police response. In India, that kind of apathy is routine and 'expected' of each and every governmental organization.

Surprising would have been hard-hitting investigations and solved cases.

I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; death, the shatterer of worlds. The dead night tiger made whole by the Master of Sinanju.

I, for one, appreciate the Oppenheimer reference.

Here's a great description of just how that quote fit on multiple levels: http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/pnrgd/wanted_to_share_m...

It's much more than Oppenheimer simply realizing he created a massively destructive weapon.

I, for one, appreciate the Remo The Destroyer reference a whole lot more. Boy that brings back memories.

Can't tell if you're joking, but pretty sure Oppenheimer quoted the Bhagavad Gita, not the pulp fiction book from which your quote originates.

"Oppenheimer most definitely quoted Pulp Fiction."

- Quentin Tarantino

Tricky, isn't it. If unsure, the answer is usually both, or something else entirely. To clarify, I know it is pulpy, but that quote still keeps the more classical references, while also including a secret government assassin, which seemed apt.

Sorry. Irrepressible nerd pedantry. Carry on!

Given the blind paroxysms of nerd rage that I sometimes fly into when waffling on the nets, I really wouldn't worry about it. :)

Well...we have a video of Oppenheimer saying this quote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8w3Y-dskeg

Your quote is wrong.

It's deliberately wrong. It's a joke.

is it just me or is this more of an insight into India's feelings about their nascent role as a superpower. In the article I count 3 deaths in 4 years and one attempted kidnapping. That makes for a long weekend in some towns in the world and does not seem like it would be statistically significant in an "industry" that employs ~ 200 000 people

So why is this news and why on HN? I suspect because it's tapping into something in Indian society - the fear of them, the Men in Black, secret power structures running underneath the democratic institutions. it seems to be part of a malease with our institutions globally - they just don't fit or react as we would expect them to. I cannot tell if this is more or similar in india so would be interested in comments

Of course it could be the men in black ...

number of people in India nuclear industry: guesstimate from scaling up British nuclear group at selafield - 13,000 for one site. The npcil site is not helpful.

edit: tidied up

>number of people in India nuclear industry: guesstimate from scaling up British nuclear group at selafield - 13,000 for one site.

13,000 people -- including janitors, accountants, secretaries, guards and officials, not 13,000 nuclear scientists.

And those are not "3 deaths", are 3 very suspect deaths will all the external appereances of targeted murder.

But "suspicious" deaths occur within any grouping of people. And this is just a conspiracy theory in search of some facts.

sorry, in a world of 7 billion people I cannot buy into a conspiracy based on anecdote.

>But "suspicious" deaths occur within any grouping of people.

Not really. Where did you get that idea? Not many suspicious deaths in these here parts for example.

>sorry, in a world of 7 billion people I cannot buy into a conspiracy based on anecdote.

The microcosm of Indian nuclear engineers is not "7 billion people".

And anecdotes is another name for facts. This is not a statistical study.

Even one mysteriously murdered scientist is enough to draw suspicion.

The fact that they died isn't what's concerning. The circumstances around their deaths is (like their dead bodies being found on railroad tracks).

Sounds like a non-state player has decided to solve some business problems by hiring local contract killers. Could be rich Chinese, Russians, Americans. Anyone who has a ton of cash and industrial interests that are best served by no nuclear proliferation.

In India any problem is generally assumed to be caused by a "foreign hand". Even if it is no rain for long periods, politicians will claim "foreign hands" are involved.

Really tragic for those who lost their loved ones. All these incidents sound like a plot of a bollywood movie.

The writer's overuse of bold text really tarnishes his credibility.

The bold text all appear to be links, just sayin'. I agree that it's obnoxious though.

It's a style of writing that is supposed to make texts easier and more interesting to read. I don't see any correlation between the quality of journalism and the use of bold text.

Edit: Also, they're links. As pointed out by someone else.

One shouldn't be so fast to question an author's credibility, especially if one is only a random nick on an unrelated site making unsupported statements.

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