TNN

New Delhi, Apr 20: The recent smuggling of 210 litres of acetic anhydride on an Air India flight to Kabul not only exposed the chinks in India’s airport security but also put the lives of 114 passengers at risk as the banned chemical is known to be highly combustible.

In a mockery of the stringent security measures put in place at all airports, the consignment passed through Customs scanners at Indira Gandhi International Airport and was loaded onto Air India’s flight IC-843 to Kabul on March 22 along with luggage and other shipment.

Initial investigation has revealed scary details. A highly corrosive and inflammable substance, acetic anhydride was concealed in consignments of clothes and medicines along with luggage of passengers — turning the Air India flight virtually into a flying coffin. Even a small leakage of the substance could have triggered a blast.

Sources said acetic anhydride, if it comes in contact with water, causes blast. The acid, used to refine opium into high-grade heroin, was smuggled into Afghanistan despite an alert issued by Kabul.

The Air India flight, besides the luggage of passengers, had five consignments that included more than 1,500 kg of apparel, 2,000 kg of medicines and 300 kg of printed matter. Given the high-priority attached to security of passenger aircraft and a host of anti-hijacking measures deployed by the government after the Kandahar incident, the smuggling of acetic anhydride by the official carrier has come as a big blow to the security apparatus.

It is quite surprising that Customs’ high-density scanners could not detect the huge pack of highly inflammable chemical when even a small bottle of deodorant is identified and not allowed to be carried in hand baggage, a senior home ministry official said. I

n fact, Kabul had alerted New Delhi just a month ago to take preventive steps to ensure that no drug precursor was sent to Afghanistan as there was no legitimate use of that chemical on its land. The alert had the undertone of a warning as Kabul believes that part of the acid used by drug traffickers in Afghanistan to refine opium into heroin is smuggled from India besides other sources such as the CIS countries and Pakistan.

Acetic anhydride is a controlled substance in India and is manufactured by a handful of companies under strict
vigil of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the nodal agency for precursor chemicals, functioning under the home ministry.

The chemical has legitimate uses in pharmaceutical industry with each consignment supposed to be verified and audited by the NCB on quarterly basis.

This is, however, not the first time that acetic anhydride has been seized. In the last year alone, about
2,000 litres of the acid was seized across the country by the Central Bureau of Narcotics, another agency tasked to look after legitimate cultivation of opium.

A high-level investigation is in progress involving ministries of external affairs, home and finance. The seizure is a big setback to India’s rebuilding effort in Afghanistan where opium is grown in a large part of the war-ravaged nation under Taliban control. A part of the proceeds of heroin, manufactured from this opium, goes into funding of Al Qaida and Taliban.

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan this year has been to the tune of 7,700 tonnes of which nearly 725 tonnes of heroin worth more than Rs 7 lakh crore in European market is estimated to have been manufactured.