An inquiry is being undertaken to investigate the cause of the accident which led to the death of the two research scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc), minister of state for science and technology Prithviraj Chavan said talking exclusively to this paper. "We need to know how the accident occurred. It (Barc) is a very large establishment with more than 1,000 scientists working there," the minister said. "These are standalone accidents and the accident at Bhabha cannot be linked to what happened at the Kaiga nuclear plant where a disgrunted employee put some heavy water into a drinking water cooler. It was very mischievous. These two accidents are not linked," he maintains. "Even the smallest incident in a nuclear facility gets highlighted. One reason for this is that there are a lot of vested interests (abroad) who want to paint our nuclear facilities in a poor light," he said. "This is not to say that these accidents should be taken lightly," he said, explaining that he had spoken to the secretary, (ministry of science and technology), for an update. "When the news first broke, we did not know the identity of the researchers," the minister said. Mr Chavan had gone to Haryana on Wednesday for a byelection and confirmed he would get another update as soon as he reached the capital. When asked to comment on the reaction of some relatives of Umang Singh who had said on television that smaller fires had occurred in the same laboratory in November, the minister replied, "I cannot comment on hearsay; the whole issue has to be looked into. This is not to say imply I am trying to brush the whole matter under the carpet," he said. "As soon as I reach Delhi, I will ask for the latest update," he added.