Targeting the Indian Space Research Organization

In the wake of the Mumbai and Varanasii bomb blasts, intelligence leaks in the Navy war room and last December's shootings at IISc Bangalore, the Indian Space Research Organization has begun to ramp up security. For those of you who don't know, I have had an ongoing fascination with ISRO since I heard about the Chandryaan-1 mission to the moon, and have a couple stories coming out about it in Wired in the coming weeks/months.

In my visit to Sriharikota, the launch site for all of India's satellite launch vehicles, and to the satellite research center in Bangalore the two things that struck me were the bureocratic walls of red tape that I had to cut through to get interviews with scientists as a foreign journalst, and the actuall fortified walls of the complex that were bristling with police officers holding assault rifles.

Although there have been no attempts by terrorists to target ISRO to date, it is without a doubt one of the most important repositries of national pride in India.

So I was not surprised this morning when I read a small blurb burried inside the pages of the Hindu that a stranger was picked up near ISRO's Liquid Propulsion System's Center (LPSC) at Panagudi. The story only said that the man was being interrogated--a procedure in India that makes Guantanamo look like Club Med. What it did say was that K. Sivan (45), a West Bengal native, "was posing as a rag picker" and wandering near the compound wall.

In all likelyhood the man didn't even know that ISRO had a facility there, and has no connections to terrorist groups--but there is some nagging doubt.