Mumbai: The Indian Airlines (IA) security staff at Mumbai airport believed they had made a prize catch while screening the hand baggage of Jaipur-bound passengers a few days prior to the first nuclear weapon test at Pokhran in Rajasthan in May 1974.
As the personal hand baggage of passengers was being x-rayed, a particular one aroused their suspicion and they took it aside for inspection. The hand baggage belonged to two passengers. The "suspicious" hand baggage was a specially-made thermos flask. The IA security staff asked the passengers to step aside and they were questioned about its contents. While this was in progress, an army officer who was accompanying the passengers on this flight managed to convince the IA security men that the thermos flask contained nothing dangerous, and was merely a night vision device used for experiments.
The security staff handed back the thermos flask to the passengers and allowed them to proceed to the airport's pre-boarding security enclosure. Had it not been for the intervention for the army officer, the passengers would have had a problem boarding the IA flight and a major national scientific project would have been delayed.Who were the two passengers? They were none other than PK Iyengar, and TS Murthy of BARC's radioisotope division. They were on their way to Pokhran via Jaipur in connection with the first nuclear weapon test on May 18,1974, code named "Smiling Buddha." The thermos flask did not contain a night vision device, but the trigger for India's first atomic bomb.
23/12/11 Srinivas Laxman/Times of India
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