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Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan : Project
Director
31 July 1976, the day when Pakistan's
atomic programme was started. This day becomes
an important track in the history of Pakistan, because at the same day E.R.L (
Engineering
Research Laboratory) was also established. Only six years of small era,
Pakistan stands in those
countries who have atomic skills and development.
In 1960, General (after) Field
Marshal Ayub Khan took a somewhat serious
view of the
situation and brought a nuclear scientist, Dr I.H Usmani, to head the PAEC. Full
of energy and confidence Usmani laid firm foundations of Atomic Energy
"mission" and made the scientists a respectable community. utilised
the services of an international architect, Edward Durrel Store, to plan a
complex for research, development and training facilities, which resulted in the
first national atomic research institute called PINSTECH.
When Bhutto assumed power, he appeared to be anxious to make his country a
nuclear power, and appointed Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan as PAEC Chief. It seems that
Dr.A.Q.Khan was equally alive to the dangers that lay ahead for Pakistan. He
visited Pakistan in 1972 73, soon after Pakistan's break up, and felt that the
nation needed something to raise its spirits. In the middle of 1974, he wrote to
Mr. Bhutto what the nation required and what, after the detonation by India of a
nuclear device, he (Dr.A.Q.Khan) could do in this behalf. Mr. Bhutto asked
Dr.A.Q.Khan to meet him in Karachi in December, 1974. It was during this meeting
that Dr. Khan told Mr. Bhutto that instead of going for the illadvised purchase
of a very costly reprocessing plant, Pakistan should manufacture her own
centrifuge plant.  Dr. Khan was asked to join PAEC as an Advisor.What Dr.A.Q.Khan
saw was intolerable and one day in the middle of 1976 he told Mr. Bhutto
everything. Bhutto too was in a hurry as was Dr.A.Q.Khan and, therefore, he
separated the project from the PAEC and asked Dr. Khan to take everything in his
own hands.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
The Engineering Research Laboratories (currently known as Dr.A.Q.Khan Research
Laboratories), established in July, 1976, were shifted to the new premises. As
has been stated by General Arif, "Its previous location comprising old,
dingy, leaking huts, resembling junk shops had served the purpose. The tiny
centrifuge project of Sihala was conceived and fabricated here". Kahuta
followed the success of the Sihala Pilot Plant.Things could not remain secret
for long and Pakistan's own newspapers aroused the "curiosity, surprise,
and ire of the Western World." The whole world was stunned; a country
unable to produce needles and ball bearings had fabricated, through its own
efforts, centrifuges which required extremely sensitive technology and material.
The noise by the Westcontinued with an unabated venom, and so did Pakistan's
torts under the strict guidance of Dr.A.Q.Khan till the President General
Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq
announced in December 1982; "We have capability to enrich uranium".
The miracle was brought out in a period of six years after Dr.A.Q.Khan took over
the project The PAEC, meanwhile, remained in shambles. The people at the helm
could not create a team to be able to produce light water power reactors out of
ignorance, lethargy or venom to minimise the benefits of Dr. A. Q. Khan's rare
achievement. Apart from making Pakistan immune to India's nuclear blackmail,
there are two very important revolutions that Dr. khan has envisioned before
mankind. He has demonstrated that science and technology cannot be monopolised
by a single race community for all times to come. Nature is as generous to a
arching soul in the Third World countries as it is to a similar longing by a
Westerner. He has thus removed the dread of perpetual domination of the West in
the field of science and technology. The second revolution in the thought
process of the world community of scientists is that the partisan and war
mongering politician must not be left alone to run the affairs of unkind or of
his or her country. In fact, both these revolutions are interlinked and who
knows that identical movements in every country will soon start to replace the
partisan politician with the Scientist who will at once be a humanist on account
of being generator of power, and, hence international in outlook, and a true
guarantor of peace. , Every genuine scientist is a child of Nature. In the
present day divided mankind, he may belong to one or the other immunity but his
main concern is the survival of man as a single species. He is not
materialistic. In spite of dealing with e physical world, he is, in fact, in
search of the spiritual. The :ire is his background spiritual, the more is he
worried about an as a species. If he devotes his energies to uplift a Community,
he does so to enable his own community to play a worthwhile role in the survival
struggle of mankind as a whole,and not to wage war against another people.
This applies to Dr.A.Q.Khan more than most of his Western colleagues in the
profession. An ample proof of this is available in the present collection of his
articles in which he warns mankind against accumulation of nuclear arsenal.
Unlike the image which the West has been trying to create of Dr.A.Q.Khan a
monster with nuclear weapons capabilities of his own he is more worried about
the future of mankind than any Indian scientist has so far been able to appear.
In one of his articles, he recalls how the advice given by "that genius
Neils Bohr that temporary advantage (from using nuclear weapons against Japan)
would result in perpetual menace to human security", was ignored. The
advice given subsequently by Szilard, Frank, Einstein, etc., was also ignored.
Dr. Khan says, "Scientists and engineers think rationally and their advice
can play a positive role, but unfortunately because of their dedication to work
and isolation, they have not been able to influence the course of
politics".
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