Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Rogue in the Ranks
Born into a modest family in Bhopal, India in 1936, Dr Khan migrated
to Pakistan in 1952, five years after the creation of the new Muslim
state. 6 Memories of the bloodbath in the aftermath of the partition of
India in 1947 left a profound impact on him, and his deep anti-Indian
sentiments stem from that experience. After graduating from Karachi
University, he moved to Europe in 1961 for further studies. He first
went to Germany, where he attended the Technical University in West
Berlin, then to Holland, where he received a degree in Metallurgical
Engineering in 1967. Dr Khan eventually received a Ph.D. in Metallurgy
from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1972. He took up
a job in the 1970s at a uranium-enrichment plant run by a British-Dutch-
German consortium, URENCO, at Almelo in the Netherlands. 7 There
he also met his Dutch wife, Hendrina. Dr Khan worked with two early
centrifuge designs, then, in 1974, he was assigned to translate design
documents for two advanced German machines, the G1 and G2.
Those were considered the most sophisticated industrial enrichment
technology in the world at that time. He had unrestricted access to the
plant. During this period he is believed to have made extensive notes,
which were useful in his future work in Pakistan. That was also the
period when Pakistan decided to develop a nuclear weapon.
In 1972, just months after the humiliating defeat in the war with
India that resulted in the December 1971 dismemberment of the
country, Pakistan’s President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, announced his plans
to develop an atom bomb at a secret meeting of scientists and civil
and military officials in the southern Punjab city of Multan. Pakistan’s
decision to acquire a nuclear device was driven both by fear of Indian
domination and the desire for prominence in the Islamic world. India’s
nuclear test explosion in May 1974 gave further impetus to Pakistan’s
obsession with nuclearization. India’s demonstration of nuclear
capability reinforced the sense of insecurity in a defeated nation.
The two countries had fought three wars since their independence
and India’s military superiority was fully illustrated in the 1971 war.
Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s nuclear programme appeared to
counter India’s conventional superiority and its newly acquired nuclear
capability. 8
Even before this development, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then Foreign
Minister, had declared in 1966 that if India made a nuclear bomb
Pakistan would follow suit. ‘Even if Pakistanis have to eat grass, we
will make the bomb,’ Bhutto asserted in an often-quoted statement. 9
His ascendancy to the presidency in 1971 and the realization of
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