Jamshedpur, April 21: Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) authorities today said they are not ruling out the possibility of sabotage behind yesterday?s incident, in which a sluice gate opened without warning.

A former employee of UCIL, Jagatram Tudu, was killed yesterday morning when water gushed in from the barrage without any warning. The barrage is manned by Central Industrial Security Force personnel.

Today, Jadugora faced water problems as the company restricted the supply to only twice a day. Several gallons of water went to waste after the gate opened.

Senior officials of the public sector undertaking hinted that they were exploring the possibility of sabotage. ?It?s a serious breach of security. Such an incident has never happened before,? they said.

UCIL chairman-cum-managing director Ramendra Gupta said the sluice gate could not have opened on its own and somebody must have operated the switch, which led to yesterday?s tragedy. ?It?s a serious matter,? he said.

Asked who could have operated the switch, Gupta said the company was conducting a thorough probe into the incident. ?We are inquiring into the incident and things will be clear once the probe is over,? he added.

Speaking on the possibility of sabotage, company secretary P.V. Dubey said, ?We do not know how the gate opened. Somebody must have observed the operations at the barrage. We are not discounting the sabotage factor at this stage,? he added.

Dubey replied in the negative when asked if the UCIL suspected the involvement of any employee in the incident. ?No UCIL employee is involved in the incident. Workers as well as the general public of Jadugora are satisfied with the functioning of the company,? he claimed.

The UCIL official said several gallons of water had gushed out of the barrage after the gate opened. ?The incident has forced us to reduce the supply of water to Jadugora township,? he added.

The company is supplying water only twice a day from today, Dubey said. ?Before the incident, the residents were getting water supply thrice daily,? he added. Residents of Jadugora will get water from 5 am to 9 am and 5 pm to 9 pm till the situation improves.

The barrage, which was constructed about 30 years ago by UCIL, is the only source of water for the people of Jadugora.