Gandhinagar: Indian Customs officials detained a ship named Da Cui Yun — bearing a Hong Kong flag and bound for Port Qasim in Karachi from Jiangyin port on the Yangtze river in China’s Jiangsu province — for wrongly declaring an autoclave, which can be used in the launch process of ballistic missiles, as an industrial dryer. The vessel was intercepted on the basis of intelligence tip-off.

According to The Hindustan Times report, the ship, intercepted on February 3, is undergoing a detailed inspection at Kandla Port in Gujarat. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which has been examining the ship, is sending a second team of nuclear scientists this week to check the large autoclave on board. f this team upholds the findings of the first team, Customs will seize the cargo, and charge the vessel and its owners for violations of Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (Scomet) export regulations.

The ship dropped anchor at Kandla, and was bound for Port Qasim. Port Qasim is in Karachi, Sindh, where the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco), responsible for Pakistan ballistic missile programme, is based. The detention of the vessel has been brought to the notice of the highest levels of national security establishment and the intelligence agencies.

The 18×4-metre autoclave on board. The autoclave – a pressure chamber to carry out various industrial and scientific processes — has been prima facie certified as a “dual-use” item, which means it can be used for civilian and military purposes.

the industrial autoclave is used for manufacturing composite lining for the solid-fuel ballistic missiles. The ballistic missile is propelled by a solid-fuel-based booster in its critical Phase I. For this, the solid fuel is placed in a steel alloy casing, which needs a composite material liner to withstand the high pressure and high temperatures during the launch process. An autoclave is used to manufacture sheets of silica under controlled temperature and pressure, so that they can be used as liners.