A brilliant Scientist

The man who regarded as the “father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb” was, Dr. Abdul Qadeer khan a famous Pakistani nuclear scientist and a metallurgical engineer. Dr. A.Q khan was hailed as a national hero for transforming his country in to world’s first Islamic nuclear power. But elsewhere he was remembered as a dangerous proponent of nuclear proliferation. He is widely regarded as the founder of gas centrifuge enrichment technology for Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent program. As its “father” A.Q khan, who headed Pakistan’s nuclear program for some 25 years is considered a national hero and the great Scientist. 

Dr. Abdul Qadeer khan was born in 1936 in Bhopal, India. In 1947 during his childhood India achieved independence from Britain and Muslim areas were partitioned in the east and west to form Pakistan. He immigrated to West Pakistan in 1952, and in 1960 he graduated from Karachi University with a degree of metallurgy. Over the next decade he further pursued graduate studies abroad, first in West Berlin, and then in Delft Netherlands. And later on he earned Doctorate degree in metallurgical engineering from Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. 

In the spring of 1972 he was hired by Physical Dynamics Research Laboratory a subcontractor of the Dutch of the Dutch Partner URENCO. URENCO a consortium of British German and Dutch Companies was establish to research and develop Uranium enrichment through the use of Ultra centrifuges, which are centrifuges that operate at extremely high speeds. He was granted a low level security clearance, but through lax oversight he gained access to a full range of information on ultra centrifuge technology and visited the Dutch plant at Carmelo many times. He was heavily influenced by events back home, notably Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in a brief war with India in 1971, the subsequent loss of east Pakistan through the creation of a new independent country, Bangladesh, and India's test of a nuclear explosive device in May 1974.

On September 17, 1974, he wrote a letter to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, offering his assistance in preparing an atomic bomb. In the letter he offered the opinion that the uranium route to the bomb, using centrifuges for enrichment, was better than the plutonium path which relied on nuclear reactors and reprocessing. 

Bhutto met him in December 1974 and encouraged him to do everything he could, to help the Pakistan attain the bomb. He copied the drawings of centrifuges and assembled a list of mainly European suppliers, where parts could be procured. On December 15 1975, he left the Netherlands for Pakistan, accompanied by his wife and two daughters and carrying his blue print copies and suppliers list.

He worked with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), but the differences arose up with its head, Munir Ahmed khan. In mid-1976 at Bhutto’s direction he founded the Engineering Research Laboratory or ERL, for the purpose of developing a uranium-enrichment capability (In May 1981 the laboratory was renamed as the Khan Research Laboratory or KRL). The ERL functioned directly under the Army’s corps of Engineers, with he being its chief scientist, and the army engineers located the national site at isolated lands in Kahuta for the enrichment program as the ideal site for preventing accidents. He was put in charge of building, equipping and operating and operating Pakistan’s Kahuta facility which was established in 1976. Under his direction, Pakistan employed an extensive clandestine network in order to obtain the necessary materials and technology for its developing uranium enrichment capabilities.

In the military circles, his scientific ability was well recognized and was often known with his moniker “centrifuge khan” and the national laboratory was renamed after him upon the visit of President Muhammad Zia-UL-Haq in 1983. In spite of his role, he was never in charge of the actual designs of the nuclear devices, their calculations, and eventual weapons testing which remained under the directorship of Munir Ahmed Khan PAEC.

The PAEC’s senior scientists who worked with him and under him remember him as “an ego maniacal lightweight” given to exaggerating his scientific achievements in centrifuges. At one point Muir khan said that “most of the scientists who work on the development of atomic bomb projects were extremely ‘serious’. They were sobered by the weight of what they don’t know; Abdul Qadeer Khan is a showman”. During the timeline of the bomb program, Dr. A.Q khan published papers on analytical mechanics of balancing of rotating masses and thermodynamics with mathematical rigor to compete, but still failed to impress his fellow theorists at PAEC, generally in the physics community. In the later years, Khan became a staunch critic of Munir Khan’s research in physics, and so many occasions tried unsuccessfully to belittle Munir Khan’s role in the atomic bomb projects. Their scientific rivalry became public and widely popular in the Physics community and seminars held in the country over the years. 

 In 1998, finally he took permission from the current Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to do test of atomic bombs. In 28 May 1998, at the point of Chagai five simultaneous nuclear tests conducted by Abdul Qadeer khan and find success to fulfill the target, the tests were performed at Ra's k oh hills.

At that moment Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan gave the message to whole world that We made the defense of Pakistan incredible. So, in that way he gained acceptance and respect from the whole world as a great nuclear scientist and win the title of “Father of nuclear bomb”. All Muslim worlds made celebration after the atomic nuclear bomb,that was like the Eid of Muslim community. The Saudi Mufti Azam regarded Abdul Qadeer khan as the Hero of Muslim World, and gave the announcement that Saudi Arabia will provide crude oil free. Still Pakistan is receiving free crude oil after that. That can’t bring happiness in the west world, and as propaganda he gave the name “Islamic bomb” to which Abdul Qadeer Khan accepted with happiness. 

In the Period of Previous President General Pervaiz Musharraf Dr. A.Q khan was arrested in 2004 for illegally sharing the nuclear technology with Iran, Libya and North Korea. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was pardoned by Pakistan’s then President, Pervaiz Musharraf, but he was held under house arrest until 2009. 

The leniency of his treatment angered many in the west, where he has been dubbed “the greatest nuclear proliferate of all time”. But in Pakistan he remained the symbol of pride for his role in boosting its national security.

In 1993, Karachi University rewarded the honorable certificate of “Doctor of Science” to Abdul Qadeer Khan on his services. In 14 of August 1996 the President of Pakistan Farooq Lugari rewarded the biggest civil award “Nishan e Imtiaz” whereas in1989 he was also awarded with “Hilal e Imtiaz”.