10/10/2021
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was born on April 1, 1936, in Bhopal of British India. Khan attended the University of Karachi where he completed a BSc in Physics.
He was heavily influenced by the events of 1971, the loss of East Pakistan, and the subsequent test of nuclear explosives by India in 1974, which led him to write to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto expressing his desire to work for Pakistan’s nuclear program.
He joined Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) in 1976. Pakistan had already acquired its weapons by the 1980s but detonated in the late 1990s after India conducted its tests.
Dr AQ Khan is considered the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme and is revered at home as a hero for building the Muslim world's first atomic bomb. Following the tests, Pakistan became the sole nuclear power in the Muslim world and the seventh country to possess nuclear weapons.
He founded the Engineering Research Laboratory, or ERL, to develop a uranium-enrichment capability. In 1981 ERL was renamed the Khan Research Laboratory or KRL.
Dr AQ Khan was awarded the Hilal-i-Imtiaz and the Nishan-e-Imtiaz in 1989 and 1999 for his outstanding performance in the world of science and technology.
