NEW DELHI: US officials fear lax security at Indian laboratories could make the facilities targets for terrorists seeking biological weapons to launch attacks across the globe, according to comments in a leaked US diplomatic cable made public Friday. The cable was part of a trove of documents sent from the US Embassy in New Delhi that was obtained by the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks and published Friday by the British newspaper The Guardian. The cables dealt with accusations of Indian torture in Kashmir and the concerns of Rahul Gandhi – seen as India's prime-minister-in-waiting – that Hindu extremists posed a greater danger to India than Islamist militants. One of the cables from June 2006 raised concerns that terrorist groups could take advantage of weak security at Indian laboratories to steal “bacteria, parasites, viruses or toxins.” “Terrorists planning attacks anywhere in the world could use India's advanced biotechnology industry and large bio-medical research community as potential sources of biological agents,” read the cable, marked confidential. “Given the strong air connections Delhi shares with the rest of the world and the vulnerabilities that might be exploited at airports, a witting or unwitting person could easily take hazardous materials into or out of the country.” “Getting into a facility to obtain lethal bio-agents is not very difficult here,” one expert, whose name was redacted from the cable, told US diplomats. A second expert said that academic research facilities maintain only very loose security procedures. “The harsh reality is that you can bribe a guard with a pack of cigarettes to get inside,” the expert was quoted as saying. One source told the diplomats that India's thousands of biological scientists also might be recruited, either out of ideological sympathies or for money. An Indian government official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly address the issue, dismissed the concerns as “far-fetched and fanciful.” However, Suman Sahai, a biotechnology expert, told The Associated Press that security remains very poor at biotech firms four years after the cable was written. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Friday that he was the target of an aggressive US investigation and feared extradition to the United States was “increasingly likely”. Speaking to reporters from the grounds of the English country house where he was sent after his release on bail this week, Assange gave no hint of what charge he might face. Assange was asked about reports that WikiLeaks planned to release a series of secret banking documents, but refused to say which banks might be involved. “It is our normal business to publish information about banks ... of course we are continuing to release material about banks.”
