Chennai, Feb 25 (IANS) A nuclear scientist, S. Ananthanarayanan working in the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) in Tamil Nadu is missing since last week, police said Thursday.

'We got a complaint from his wife Feb 18 and registered a complaint as 'man missing'. As per our information, Ananthanarayanan was disturbed about the health condition of his child and he might have gone to some temple,' Deputy Superintendent of Police (Mamallapuram) Sambandam Murthy told IANS.

IGCAR, located inside Kalpakkam nuclear complex, some 80 km from here, is one of the highly sensitive atomic research institutions in the country that is involved in design and development of nuclear reactors.

'Ananthanarayanan joined IGCAR in 1997 and is a scientific officer E grade, that is middle level. He is involved in development of software for managing healthcare data of the employees and their family members,' J. Daniel Chellappa, head (technical) told IANS.

He said Ananthanarayanan, 37, did not attend duty since Feb 15 and IGCAR director Baldev Raj has approached top police officials to quickly trace Ananthanarayanan.

According to him, Ananthanarayanan is certainly not deployed on any sensitive assignment nor does he have access to such data.