Abdul Qadeer Khan (Pakistani Scientist)

Early Life:

Khan was born Bhopal into a Urdu Speaking-Pathan family, which migrated from India to Pakistan in 1952. He obtained a B.Sc. degree in 1960 from the University of Karachi, majoring in physical metallurgy. He then obtained an engineer’s degree in 1967 from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. degree in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1972.. He is a Pakistani nuclear scientist and metallurgical engineer, widely regarded as the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear program. His middle name is occasionally rendered as Quadeer, Qadir or Qadeer, and his given names are usually abbreviated to A.Q.. 

Development of Nuclear Weapons:

In 1976, Khan was put in charge of Pakistan’s uranium enrichment program with the support of the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The uranium enrichment program was originally launched in 1974 by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as Project-706 and Khan joined it in the spring of 1976. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan took over the project from another Pakistani nuclear engineer, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood in July 1976. In July of that year, he took over the project from PAEC and re-named the enrichment project as the Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL) at Kahuta, Rawalpindi, subsequently, renamed the Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) by the then President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The laboratories became the focal point for developing a uranium enrichment capability for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development programme.

Competing Against Munir Ahmad Khan and PAEC:

But KRL led by dr. Khan was not mandated or involved with the actual design, development and testing of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons which was the responsibility of PAEC. Nor was KRL responsible for developing the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, comprising uranium exploration, mining and refining and production of yellow cake, conversion of yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride gas which is the feed material for enrichment and nuclear fuel fabrication; or the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle comprising the civil and military nuclear reactor projects and the reprocessing program, all of which was developed and led from 1972 onwards by PAEC under Mr. Munir Ahmad Khan.Dr. Khan initially worked under Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), headed by Munir Ahmad Khan, for a short period. But the pair fell out, and in July 1976, Prime Minister Bhutto gave dr. Khan autonomous control of the uranium enrichment project, reporting directly to the prime minister’s office, which arrangement has continued since. Dr. Khan founded the Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL) on 31 July 1976, with the exclusive task of indigenous development of Uranium Enrichment Plant. Within the next five years the target would be achieved. KRL led by dr. A Q Khan and PAEC led by Munir Ahmad Khan created a tough institutional rivalry against each other. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was also a staunch critic of Munir Ahmad Khan’s work. In the early 1980s, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan’s KRL also sought to develop nuclear weapons in competetion with PAEC and claimed to have carried out at least one cold test in 1984, but it seems that this effort did not prove to be successful since PAEC led by Munir Ahmad Khan had carried out the first cold test of a working nuclear device on March 11, 1983, and in the following years continued to carry out 24 cold tests of different weapons designs. That is why PAEC also conducted the 1998 nuclear tests for Pakistan at Chaghi and Kharan.

Relationships with President Gen. Zia ul-Haq and Pakistan Army:

According to the media reports, it said that dr. Khan had an extremely close relationship with President Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and Pakistan Army. Dr. Khan had extremely close relations with the Pakistan Army. On 01 May 1981, after President Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq official visit to ERL; ERL was renamed by Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq as Dr. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL). It was enrichment of Uranium in KRL that ultimately led to the successful detonation of Pakistan’s first nuclear device on 28 May 1998. However, KRL also launched other weapons development projects like in competion ofPAEC the development of the nuclear weapons-capable Ghauri ballistic missile. the PAEC was developing the solid fuelled Shaheen ballistic missile. KRL occupied a unique role in Pakistan’s Defence Industry, reporting directly to the office of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and having extremely close relations with the Pakistani military. The former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto (late), has said that, during her term of office, even she was not allowed to visit the facility (KRL).
Heading KRL:
Pakistan’s establishment of its own uranium enrichment capability was so rapid that international suspicion was raised as to whether there was outside assistance to this program. It was reported that Chinese technicians had been at the facility in the early 1980s, but suspicions soon fell on Khan’s activities at URENCO. In 1983, Khan was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison by an Amsterdam court for attempted espionage; the sentence was later overturned at an appeal on a legal technicality. Khan rejected any suggestion that Pakistan had illicitly acquired nuclear expertise: “All the research work [at Kahuta] was the result of our innovation and struggle,” he told a group of Pakistani librarians in 1990. “We did not receive any technical know-how from abroad, but we cannot reject the use of books, magazines, and research papers in this connection.”]In 1987, a British newspaper reported that Khan had confirmed Pakistan’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons development capability, by his saying that the U.S. intelligence report “about our possessing the bomb (nuclear weapon) is correct and so is speculation of some foreign newspapers”.] Khan’s statement was disavowed by the Government of Pakistan. and initially he denied giving it, but he later retracted his denial. In October 1991, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that Khan had repeated his claim at a dinner meeting of businessmen and industrialists in Karachi, which “sent a wave of jubilation” through the audience.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Western governments became increasingly convinced that covert nuclear and ballistic missile collaboration was taking place between China, Pakistan, and North Korea. According to the Washington Post, “U.S. intelligence operatives secretly rifled Dr. A.Q. [Khan's] luggage … during an overseas trip in the early 1980s to find the first concrete evidence of Chinese collaboration with Pakistan’s [nuclear] bomb effort: a drawing of a crude, but highly reliable, Hiroshima-sized [nuclear] weapon that must have come directly from Beijing, according to the U.S. officials.” In October 1990, the activities of KRL led to the United States terminating economic and military aid to Pakistan, following this, the Government of Pakistan agreed to a freeze in its nuclear weapons development program. But Khan, in a July 1996 interview with the Pakistani weekly Friday Times, said that “at no stage was the program [of producing nuclear weapons-grade enriched uranium] ever stopped”.

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