Father of Pakistan nuclear bomb dies at age 85

Islamabad, Oct. 10 (BNA) Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, died on Sunday after a long illness, said the Pakistani Interior Minister. He was 85 years old.

Khan launched Pakistan on the path to becoming a nuclear power in the early 1970s. Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said he died in a hospital in Islamabad. He did not go into details, | AP reports.

Khan, who holds a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, offered to launch Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program in 1974 after its neighbor India conducted its first “peaceful nuclear explosion”.

He reached out to then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to offer technology for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Bhutto accepted the offer. He famously said, “We (Pakistanis) will eat grass and even go hungry, but we will have our own (nuclear bomb).”

Since then, Pakistan has relentlessly pursued its nuclear weapons program along with India. Both countries were declared nuclear weapon states after they conducted mutual nuclear weapons tests in 1998.

Pakistan’s nuclear program and Khan’s involvement have long been the subject of allegations and criticism.

The United States accused Khan of trading nuclear secrets with neighboring Iran and North Korea in the 1990s after Washington imposed sanctions on Pakistan over its nuclear weapons programme.

For 10 years during the Soviet occupation of neighboring Afghanistan, successive US presidents maintained that Pakistan was not developing nuclear weapons. The testimony was necessary under US law to allow US assistance to anti-communist rebels through Pakistan.

READ MORE  Information Technology Manager | Job in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia by National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) | GulfTalent

But in 1990, a few months after the 1989 withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, Washington imposed severe sanctions on Pakistan, ending all aid to the country, including military and humanitarian aid.

At his home in Pakistan, Khan was heralded as the hero and father of the nuclear bomb.

In recent years, Khan has mostly lived out of sight, and honors from fellow Pakistani scholars and politicians began shortly after his death.

Described by Prime Minister Imran Khan as a “national icon”, his nuclear weapons program provided us with “security against a much larger, aggressive nuclear neighbour. For the people of Pakistan he was a national symbol.”

Her colleague, Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, said Khan was a national treasure defying Western attempts to stifle Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

“It was inconceivable for the West that Pakistan would achieve any breakthrough, but in the end they had to recognize Dr. Khan’s achievement in making nuclear weapons for the country,” he said.

Khan passed away at KRL Hospital in the capital, Islamabad, after a long illness. He was due to be buried with official honors on Sunday afternoon at a mosque in the capital.

Source link

Leave a Comment