Kalpakkam reactor. Kalpakkam reactor.

A contract labourer at the Madras Atomic Power station at Kalpakkam here has been arrested after some pendrives and a mobile phone that had over 400 photos of the BHAVINI Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor were seized from him, police said on Thursday.

Shafir Ali was arrested on Tuesday by the Central Industrial Security Force as they found in his possession pen drives and card readers while frisking him before letting him in for his daily duty, police said.

He was handed over to Kalpakkam Police and after investigation, police said the cellphone and pen drives in his possession showed over 400 pictures of the upcoming BHAVINI Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, all taken from locations which were barred for entry.

Shafir Ali, a diploma holder in Mechanical Engineering on contractual assignment through a company, has been working at the Madras Atomic Power station campus, and belongs to Cheyyur near Madurantakam and is known to be an organisational worker of the DMK party, police said.

He is said to have explained away his activity as mere documenting for his own records, police said.

Police said he was arrested under section 18 of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962.

He was produced before the local Magistrate on Wednesday and remanded to judicial custody.

