It's the stuff James Bond movies are made of. The Cold War setting, international espionage and a failed expedition to plant a nuclear-powered device that eventually gets lost. Buried somewhere deep in the Himalayan mountain of Nanda Devi is a secret nuclear-powered espionage device America’s Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) and India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) planted to spy on China 's nuclear programme The chilling story, which is now being made into a Hollywood film, surfaced when recently Uttarakhand tourism minister Satpal Maharaj met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expressed his apprehensions that the atomic device that had gone missing over 50 years ago might be polluting waters of the Ganga.PM Modi has given his nod for unearthing the lost device.In October 1965, CIA and IB had undertaken a clandestine mission to install a nuclear-powered spying device on the summit of Nanda Devi peak to keep a tab on the Chinese. However, the team met with a blizzard and had to retreat leaving behind a nuclear-fuelled generator and plutonium capsules with the intention of renewing its attempt at a later date.However, when they returned a few months later, all the equipment, including the stock of plutonium, was gone. It is believed that plutonium capsules have a longevity of over a hundred years and could still be buried somewhere in the snow.The leader of the expedition, Capt Manmohan Singh Kohli, now 88 and living in Delhi, has recounted his experience to TOI. "After the Chinese carried out their first nuclear test in 1964, the US decided to spy on China’s nuclear capabilities via India. The CIA asked the Indian government if it could plant a sensor. The government, which at the time blindly followed the CIA, agreed. On June 23, 1965, we did a trial run on Mount McKinley in Alaska, and then went to Nanda Devi, but had to turn back because of bad weather conditions. Unable to carry it back, we left the device there. We went back in May 1966 to search for it, and again in 1967 but had no luck. In 1968, we finally abandoned the search. Because it was a top-secret mission, we were not allowed to disclose what we were doing even to our families. The American agents used aliases. The whole thing was quite exhausting, but we were in the service of the nation.," he said.Capt Kohli said that the life of the device was about 100 years and there were still about 40 years left. "If it goes into the Rishi-Ganga, the water can get very contaminated and more people would get affected, even die. But once it goes to the main Ganga, there would be quite a lot of dilution, and some people might suffer but it would not lead to fatalities. According to my estimates, the device is very hot and once it touches the glacier, it will start sinking until it touches rock. Then it won’t move," he said.Capt Kohli said it might be worthwhile to try to locate the device now that technology had improved and there was machinery that could penetrate 10 to 15 feet of ice.