INDIA. Mumbai: A CISF Jawan was posted at Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), located at Boisar in Palghar, about 115 km from Mumbai, has been missing from duty, with official weapons, since Thursday afternoon.
The jawan Manoj Yadav on duty went missing at 2.45 pm on Thursday, August 31. He was carrying the officially issued pistol and 30 live cartridges, making TAPP officials tense.
Speaking to the Transcontinental Times, the Palghar Superintendent of Police, Balasaheb Patil, confirmed that based on the complaint by the TAPS authorities, an FIR had been registered, and the search for the absconding Yadav is on. The CISF and Maharashtra Police have formed teams to trace him, and some of the teams have been sent out of Maharashtra, including neighbouring Gujarat.
Yadav collected live rounds and then went missing. The matter was disclosed only when he did not turn up for his regular duty, Patil said, adding that the matter is being inquired about from different angles to know why he took the weapon and live rounds with him.
As per the procedure, the jawans collect weapons an hour before the shift begins, and Yadav was scheduled to collect weapons one hour before his night shift at 9 pm. But instead of collecting the weapons at 8 pm, he collected them in the afternoon.
Since there is a breach of Standard Operating Procedure, the TAPS has ordered an internal inquiry because the custodian of weapons was supposed to check the duty timings of Yadav before issuing the weapon to him.
Yadav, basically from Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh, has been working with CISF since 2010. He was posted at TAPS two months back and had been residing alone at CISF quarters.
The CISF personnel are deployed at TAPS and also at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) at Trombay in Northeast Mumbai to guard these highly sensitive establishments requiring high security.
The CISF is the Central Armed Police Force under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Its security umbrella includes India’s most critical infrastructure facilities like nuclear installations, space establishments, airports, sea ports, power plants, etc.
The TAPS is located on the seashore and comprises four units. Beginning, Units 1&2 was established in 1969 with an initial generating capacity of 210 MW each. Subsequently, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) established two more units, i.e. units 3 &4, in 2005 and 2006, with a generating capacity of 540 MW each at a distance of about 700 m south side of unit 1&2.
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