MUMBAI: India had turned down slain Libyan ruler Muammar QaddafiÂ’s request to help in setting up a nuclear plant in Libya, claimed a former unidentified Indian nuclear scientist, the Times of India reported on Saturday.The scientist said that Qaddafi had unsuccessfully sought IndiaÂ’s help to develop nuclear weapons in late 1970Â’s. However, the Indian government sent a three-member team to Tripoli to negotiate a deal, the nuclear scientist told the newspaper.
The scientist further said that that Qaddafi had sent his deputy, Mustafa Abdul Jalil to New Delhi in 1978 to negotiate the deal to obtain plutonium reprocessing technology and a research reactor similar to that at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) near Mumbai, the scientist, who had played a key role in the first nuclear test in 1974, said.
“Jalil proposed an India-Libya collaboration for the purpose and held discussions in this regard with then Indian Defense Minister George Fernandez, who conveyed the request to Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who rejected it immediately.”
The scientist stated that the Indian government did not want to completely disappoint Libya, so it sent three of its nuclear scientists namely P.K. Iyengar, V. Meckoni and K.T. Thomas to Tripoli to