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Dr
Abdul Qadeer Khan, accused in the West of nuclear
espionage, is Pakistan's nuclear hero as architect
of the country's newly-declared nuclear prowess.
He
is the brains behind what has been a mysterious
and controversial nuclear programme whose latest
products are five bombs tested on Thursday and
at least one on Saturday - in response to five
exploded by arch-rival India this month.
He
is also the father of Pakistan's medium-range
Ghauri missile, test-fired last month and which
is said by officials to be capable of carrying
nuclear warheads and hitting most Indian cities.
A
scion of a modest family from India's Bhopal state,
who loves poetry, flowers, and animals, he is
caught in the subcontinent's current nuclear standoff
that has rung alarm bells across the globe.
Khan,
62, migrated to Pakistan in 1952, following millions
of other Muslims who came here from India at the
subcontinent's partition at independence from
Britain in 1947.
After
initial graduation in the port city of Karachi,
he went to Europe in 1952 for further studies
and subsequent work that was later to become the
basis of his trial and conviction in the Netherlands
on espionage charges.
Former
prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto urged Khan
to return home in 1976 to be given the job to
organise Pakistan's nuclear programme that could
give an answer to India's first nuclear explosion
of 1974.
"It
was,...to be precise, on July 31, 1976, when the
first seeds, real seeds of Pakistan's nuclear
programme were sown," Khan recalled in one of
his newspaper articles.
"The
date marks the turn in our beloved country's destiny
as it was on this fateful day that under the banner
of 'Engineering Research Laboratories', an autonomous
organisation was formed under the orders of the
late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto....
"
The aim of the secret laboratories, set up at
Kahuta, near Islamabad, was to "establish a uranium
enrichment plant and provide Pakistan with nuclear
capability", he wrote.
"In
a record short span of six years, Pakistan was
put on the nuclear map of the world and a solid
foundation was laid for our self-sufficiency in
future of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy."
Before
returning home, Khan worked at the British/German/Dutch
Urenco uranium enrichment facility in the Netherlands
in the early 1970s.
After
his return, a Dutch security enquiry revealed
he had probably taken with him most of the facility's
secrets and a list of its contractors.
He
was also named in numerous other Western inquiries
and media reports about secret purchasing operations
for components for Pakistan's uranium enrichment
plant.
Khan
acknowledges he did take advantage of his experience
of many years of working on similar projects in
Europe and his contacts there with various manufacturing
firms, but denies engaging in nuclear espionage
for which a court in Amsterdam sentenced him in
absentia in 1983 to four years in jail.
An
appeals court two years later upheld his appeal
against the conviction and quashed the sentence
on the summons for the trial had not reached him.
The
prosecution had the option to renew the charges
and issue fresh summons for a trial, but the Dutch
government decided against pursuing the case any
further, and Khan later said he saw it as an admission
that there was no substance in the case.
"The
information I had asked for was ordinary technical
information available in published literature
for many decades," Khan said in a speech afterwards
about his two letters to his contacts that became
the basis for his prosecution.
"I
had requested for it as we had no library of our
own at that time."
"Once
the Western propaganda reached its climax and
all efforts were made to stop or block even the
most harmless items, we said enough was enough
and decided indigenous production of all the sophisticated
electronic, electric and vacuum equipment," he
wrote in an article.
"Kahuta
is an all-Pakistani effort and is a symbol of
a poor and developing country's determination
and defiance to submitting to blackmail and bullying."
The
past few weeks have been Khan's moments of great
triumph. The test-firing of his 1,500-km (937-mile)
range Ghauri missile last month was greeted with
banners urging him to do more to counter what
his fans saw as an Indian threat to Pakistan.
And
he became the focus of attention after India exploded
three nuclear devices on May 11 and two more on
May 13, to which Pakistan promised to give an
"appropriate answer".
That
answer was five Pakistani nuclear blasts on Thursday
and at least one on Saturday - a move that spurred
jubilation at home and condemnation abroad, coupled
with sanctions.
Khan
scoffs at sanctions which he says will not do
much harm to the country.
"Ninety-nine
percent people eat bread with onions and they
won't be affected," he said in a newspaper interview
published on Saturday.
And
the remaining five percent have so much at home
and abroad that it will make no difference to
them. The middle class will suffer some pressure
and they will also adjust." |
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