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Father of Pakistan’s Atomic Bomb Dr AQ Khan Celebrates 83rd Birthday

ISLAMABAD: Today is the 83rd birthday of legendary physicist and metallurgical engineer Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan aka Dr AQ Khan.  

On the same day in 1936, Dr. Abdul Qadir Khan was born in Bhopal, British India. After partition, he along with his family arrived in Karachi, Pakistan in 1952.

Khan completed his graduation from Karachi University in 1960 after which he performed government service for a brief time.

Later, he went to Germany from where he obtained an engineering degree. He completed his doctoral studies from one of the institutes of Berlin and performed services for various laboratories.

He established the Kahuta Research Laboratories, also known as Khan Research Laboratories in 1976. He remained the Director General of the laboratory till his retirement in 2001.

AQ Khan, the Mohsin-e-Pakistan, is the founder of the gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment program for Pakistan’s atomic bomb project.

Dr Khan is not only known for the atomic program, but the great scientist also contributed in several projects, including molecular morphology, condensed matter physics, martensite alloys physics and materials physics. AQ Khan has published more than 188 scientific research papers in international journals.

After Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto decided to launch a program for the development of the atomic bomb, he also left his job and moved to Pakistan for equipping it with a nuclear bomb. He proposed the idea of using uranium instead of plutonium before then prime minister Bhutto.

It was all because of this man that on May 28, 1998, Pakistan successfully tested its first nuclear device and emerged as the only Muslim country to join the nuclear club.

Dr AQ Khan was awarded Hilal-i-Imtiaz in 1989 and Nishan-e-Imtiaz in 1999.