Re: IHC declares Dr. A.Q Khan a free citizen
AQ Khan was a metallurgist who was able to steal blue prints of European Uranium Enrichment plants where he was working as a translator. He was incorrectly named the father of the bomb. The true father of Pakistani bomb was Zulfiqar Bhutto who was comitted to answer India's bomb. He setup different teams, got funding from Arab nations and really fathered the bomb. He paid for his role by his life. AQ Khan was successful is setting up an smuggling network for importing Nuclear equipment to Pakistan and performed well in managing the KRL organization. The chinese help in making a bomb out of enriched uranium and North Korean and chinese help in providing missiles was also significant.
He worked with the military generals (Zia, Aslam Beg, Hameed Gul, Jehangir Karamat and Musharaf) in exporting Nuclear technology and material to Iran, Libya, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. He could be commended for being a good manager, being the fall guy (fall out of Libya coming out clean with its bomb plans) but a great national hero he is not. The Pakistan atom bomb was a result of many scientists like Munir Khan, Mubarakmand, chinese help and determination by sucessive Pakistani governments from Bhutto onwards. In fact, AQ Khan's role is associated with too many negatives: theft/espionage, smuggling, negative rivalry with PAEC and Munir Khan, personal grandoise and egoism, nuclear prolifiration, selling Iran scrap and discarded plants (P-1), profiteering, etc.