In a mysterious incident,shots were fired on the periphery of the Indian Space Research Organisations Deep Space Network station in Byalalu village,around 40 km outside Bangalore,in the early hours of Tuesday. While a CISF constable on duty at the main gate of the station claimed to have been fired upon by two unidentified khaki-clothed strangers,forcing him to return fire,police believe Jadhav may have imagined seeing someone in the dark. They also ruled out the possibility of it being a terror strike. Constable Jadhav claimed he had seen the two strangers hovering outside the main gate of the facility at around 3.20 am on Tuesday and said they opened fire at him. While he fired six rounds in return,he added,the men escaped. Two of Jadhavs seniors,ASI Naik and Head Constable Madayan,who were not at the spot claimed to have heard the firing and approached the main gate where Jadhav was stationed. Crime scene investigators who visited the spot however found evidence only of firing from the gun of the CISF constable. Additional Director General of Police (Law & Order) A R Infant ruled out the possibility of the incident being a terror attack and said that it might just be an instance where Jadhav thought he saw something in the distance and fired his weapon. We have to investigate the veracity of the constables statement. We have to find out if anyone was there at all, Infant said. About half an hour prior to the firing incident,four trucks had come to the space network station to unload sand for ongoing construction work,he added. Speaking to reporters in New Delhi,Home Minister P Chidambaram ruled out any threat to the ISRO facility. The Byalalu site of ISRO often witnesses skirmishes during the day between security personnel and people attempting to catch a glimpse of the space facility. At night the site is also considered good for star gazing on account of its remote location. Guards at the site have in the past reported a skirmish with a Chinese photographer who was attempting to take pictures of the facility. A 300-household village,Byalalu has seen a real estate boom since 2007 when ISRO brought its Deep Space Network here to be the control centre for the maiden Indian mission to the moon on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. The 125-acre ISRO property houses two giant space-tracking antennae one 18 metres in diameter and the second 32 metres in diameter. The campus also houses computer systems attached to the radar,a science data centre that archives and stores mission data,office and residential units. The tracking station established at a cost of Rs 100 crore is also intended to serve as the nerve centre for all future Indian deep space missions. The station was located at Byalalu on account of the security offered by its remoteness,the clear night sky visibility,and the saucer-shaped structure of the landscape which,according to ISRO scientists,allows the tracking of even the faintest of satellite signals.
