UAE: July 14, 2004
UAE authorities deported Mr. Akhtar Hussain Qutbuddin
Ahmed, 35, a Dubai-based Indian businessman to India for his alleged
attempts to sell classified nuclear secrets. Akhtar, who owns a general
trading shop in Dubai, was under strict surveillance of the UAE authorities
for past two years and reportedly approached UAE as well as diplomatic
missions of other 'brotherly' countries in UAE offering nuclear secrets.
UAE authority said that Akhtar tried to contact the
UAE ambassador to India in a bid to sell nuclear secrets but the latter
informed the concerned authorities. Consequently, the businessman was
put under surveillance.
Mr. Akhtar's brother who is a nuclear scientist working
with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). The BARC authorities are
scanning records of more than 16,000 employees to trace the brother.
Akhtar has been detained by Intelligence Bureau (IB)
at the international terminal Mumbai. Maharashtra’s Minister of
State for Home Kripashankar Singh, who visited the airport to get first
hand information of the scanda, said that ‘some incriminating papers
have been found’ with Akhtar. Akhtar will face his interrogators
from IB as well as India's external intelligence agency. He might be
taken to Delhi for further questioning.