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Two remote cameras stolen from Wheeler Island missile base

Two remote cameras were stolen recently from the country's missile launching centre at Wheeler Island near the Orissa coast, according to highly placed sources.

The missing cameras have been giving sleepless nights to defence ministry's officials in charge of the base.

Last week, Defence Research and Development Organisation officials filed an FIR regarding the stolen cameras at Bansada police station in Bhadrak district.

Sources told rediff.com that four cameras were installed on separate 100-metre high towers to monitor the movement of missiles. These cameras take photos of missiles launched from Wheeler Island. The photographs help further study and research of missile technology in India. "The two missing cameras used to track trajectories of missiles," sources said.

The DRDO missile development laboratory is also situated on Wheeler Island.

The fact that the cameras were stolen from a high-security defence base has raised eyebrows. Unlike Chandipur, the site of the Interim Test Range near Balasore, Wheeler Island, is a group of uninhabited islands off the Orissa coast in Bhadrak.

Wheeler Island shot into prominence in April, 1999 following the successful test firing of Agni II Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile. "The isolation from the mainland and rich vegetation around the islands attracted DRDO to develop it for missile testing," sources said.

Defence ministry officials at Wheeler Island are still not sure if the theft is the handiwork of outsiders or employees of the defence ministry working there.

The Balasore police had recently arrested two Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence agents near the Chandipur base. Therefore the involvement of the ISI in the incident cannot be ruled out, sources said.

Sources said armed security personnel were being deployed at the base of the towers where the cameras are installed.

Wheeler Island is 15 kms from the mainland and only staff of the DRDO and defence ministry are entitled to enter the island.

Even IAS and IPS officers working in Orissa are also not allowed to enter without permission from the defence ministry.

Sources said that despite the security arrangements some solar charge batteries and solar plates were stolen from the island in January last year. The police however recovered the stolen equipment from four persons in the locality, who were later identified as residents of Bangladesh.

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