Naimatullah Khan

Naimatullah Khan was the Mayor of Karachi from August 2001 to June 2005. Naimatullah Khan has been involved with

Early life

Naimatullah Khan was born in Ajmer, Rajasthan, British India on 1 October 1930 to Abdul Shakoor Khan,a railway postmaster and Bismillah Begum, a housewife. He was the third child of Abdul Shakoor Khan. He had two elder sisters and two younger brothers. In 1940, his father died of tuberculosis. The family then moved to Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, British India to live with their maternal relatives.

Migration

Conditions detoriated in the Indian Subcontinent in 1940s as the partition neared. In the meantime, Khan’s family moved back to Ajmer and Khan was now living with his paternal uncles. Khan briefly volunteered as a national guard for the Pakistan Muslim League rallies where he caught glimpses of national leaders like Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Liaqat Ali Khan. It was July 1947 and Khan’s departure to newly created Pakistan was eminent. One day during clashes with the Hindus Khan and his friends made fire crackers filled in packs of cigerrates and threw them at the opposition. Police was in search of Khan and his friends and his Taaya(uncle) advised him to leave Ajmer for Karachi. Khan obeyed the orders and thus commenced the journey which would change his and his family’s life. He left Ajmer alone for Karachi sometime in July 1947. He took a train which took him directly to Karachi via the Rajhastan desert. The train line currently stands suspended. He had a stop at Hyderabad,Pakistan where he met his father’s friend who gave him 10 rupees. Khan’s train was one of the very last trains which completed their journey without any manslaughter. Naimatullah Khan spent his first night on a footpath on I.I.Chundrigar road in a place where currently the Cotton Exchange of Pakistan stands.

Early years of struggle 1947–58

Khan describes his life from 1947–1958 as that of struggle and hardships. A few days after coming to Karachi, Khan was given a small flat on Burns Road to live under the migrant claims system prevailing at that time. That lot of flats were occupied mostly by Hindus who immediately protested to a Muslim living in the flats and Khan was turned out by the authorities. Thus Khan had no option but to set up a Jhonprri (straw house) near a place where later the tomb of Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was built. Khan started doing part-time jobs mostly that of a stenographer. He had learned shorthand back at Ajmer which helped him. In the meantime he went back to Ajmer and brought his younger brother with him to Karachi. Up until this point Khan was totally uninterested in studies. His mood changed while he was preparing for the exam of the prestigious Indian Civil Service. Although he didn’t qualify, this preparation inclined him towards pursuing higher studies. He had already done his matriculation back at Ajmer. Khan brought his other family members to Karachi in 1949–50 and they settled with him in the Jhonprri. Both his sisters were married from this Jhonprri. In the meantime Khan concentrated on his work and studies. He worked all day from six in the morning to ten at night doing several part-time jobs. He used to go standing in a truck to work in the morning reading his course book. Interestingly he never attended college or university. He had the responsibility of feeding his whole family thus he never got time to attend any institution. He enrolled at the Punjab University and just sat his papers. The highlight of his part-time job career was him working as a stenographer for Jamshed Nusserwanjee Mehta. Mehta was the first ever mayor of Karachi. He took office in 1934 when Sindh was for the first time separated from the Bombay Presidency. He was currently working as Chairman of Sindh Purchasing Board when Khan worked as his stenographer. Naimatullah Khan later went on to become the mayor of Karachi himself. Khan completed his intermediate, BA, and a double MA in journalism and Persian. He also did his LLB. He then started working in the office of a lawyer. In the meantime Khan and his family become deeply saddened by the demise of Khan’s eldest sister who died at a very young age. Khan recalls that he had gone to work and when he returned he was informed that his sister had died and was even buried. Lack of communication in those days meant Khan couldn’t be informed of the death. The lawyer whose office Khan worked at once asked Khan “Naimat, have you completed your studies?”. Khan replied yes. He told Khan to start his own work. This proved to be the turning point in Khan’s financial fortune. He up until then used to earn Rs 225 per month. He started his work in early 1958 as an income tax lawyer after taking out a 5000 rupee loan from a friend. He set up his office in Wazir Mansion I.I.Chundrigar Road. Conditions soon turned into his favour. Just months after he set up his work, martial law was imposed in Pakistan and Ayub Khan announced that whoever had not paid his income tax wont be prosecuted if he/she paid the tax up until a later date. This proved to be fruitful for Khan and many people poured into his office each day to file their tax returns thus providing Khan with loads of clients which meant a healthy income for him. Khan was finally out of poverty.

Entering politics

Khan was married in 1960. He built himself a proper house in 1967 in which he lived until 2011. Naimatullah Khan was always inspired by the writings and works of Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami. His enternce into politics started as far back as late 1960s when he helped organise political programs at his own house. He formally joined the party in 1974 while at Hajj in Makkah. Khan worked diligently for the party slowing rising through the ranks. In 1977 Khan was jailed in Sukkur for holding a rally in Karachi at a time when public gatherings were not allowed due to orders by then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Khan spent three months in jail. Khan recalls how he met the infamous General Niazi at the Sukkur jail. Martial law was imposed in 1977 and elections were held in 1979. Khan was the top most contender to become the mayor of Karachi. Citing personal issues Khan refused to take the office. Khan at that time had nine kids most of whom were very young. Khan realised his children were too young for him to take such an important role. As his replacement Abdul Sattar Afghani was made the mayor who served in the capacity until 1987 after getting re-elected in 1983. Non political elections were held in 1985 and Khan won the PS-81 constituency from Karachi. He subsequently became the Leader of Opposition of the Sindh Assembly from 1985–88. President Zia-ul-Haq was killed in a plane crash in 1988 and all the prevailing assemblies were dissolved. Khan later became the Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer of Karachi in 1990. He served in this capacity until 2001 when he had to resign to take the office of the Mayor of Karachi. In the meantime Khan also retired from his law practice in 1991 after a 34-year career.

Mayor of Karachi

Martial Law was imposed on 12 October 1999. President Musharraf formulated the new system of CDGK (City District Government Karachi). Elections were held in 2001 and Jamaat-e-Islami was able to win 12 town nazim seats out of 20. Naimatullah Khan serving at that time as the party Ameer of Karachi was nominated as the contender for the Mayor of Karachi. Having already won the majority, he was elected as the first mayor of the newly formed local body system. During his tenure he oversaw the Taameer-e-Karachi program aimed at improving the infrastructure of Karachi. He achieved over the years of his tenure to increase the budget of Karachi from 6 billion rupees to 43 billion rupees. He passed various projects such as 18 flyovers, six underpasses, two signal free roads and a huge water supply scheme for the people of Karachi. It was the first time in the history of Karachi that all the stake holders were incorporated for the developmental works. He was also the person behind the project which built dozens of Model Town Parks in Karachi. Many of his projects were completed in the tenure of the next mayor. For his tremendous work he was shortlisted for the World Mayor of the Year but due to local body election rules he had to resign just before his tenure ended which meant he could no longer compete for the title. Most importantly he is one of the very few people in the history of Pakistan to hold such an important and prestigious office and still remain free of any corruption charges. Even his opponents laud him for this.

Personal life

Khan was married in 1960 to Tahira Khatoon. He has seven sons and two daughters. All are married. His wife died in 1994 after a protracted illness. He had two sisters, both of whom have died; one of his brothers is also dead.His sons are Waseem, Nadeem, Faheem, Kaleem, Naeem, Asim, Nazim. His daughters are Gohar Lubna and Gohar Afshan. All the sons’ middle name is “Iqbal” after the late sister of Khan whose name was Iqbal. Khan also wrote a book called “Roshni ka safar” that talked about all the work he had done as mayor.

Charity work[edit]

After retiring from politics in 2005, Khan took the office of the President of Alkhidmat Foundation an NGO. He served in that capacity until 2011 when due to age and illness he just decided to look after the southern region of Alkhidmat Foundation. He has extensively worked in the Thar region of Pakistan since 1997 trying to bring that area out of problems such as acute water shortages and illiteracy.Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, and is a senior member of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan

Abdul Qadeer Khan

Abdul Qadeer Khan   ڈاکٹر عبد القدیر خان‎; b. 1 April 1936); DEngr, NI (twice), HI, FPAS; also respectfully known by some in Pakistan as Mohsin-e-Pakistan (in Urdu: محسن پاکِستان; lit: Savior of Pakistan), more popularly known as Dr. A. Q. Khan, is a Pakistani nuclear scientist and a metallurgical engineer, colloquially regarded as the founder of HEU based Gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment program for Pakistan’s integrated atomic bomb project.^[2] Founded and established the Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) in 1976, he was both its senior scientist and the director-general until his retirement in 2001, and was an early and vital figure in other science projects. Apart from participating in atomic bomb project, he made major contributions in molecular morphology, physical martensite, and its integrated applications in condensed and material physics.

Abdul Qadeer Khan was one of Pakistan’s top scientists,^[3] and was involved in the country’s various scientific programs until his dismissal.^[3] In January 2004, Khan was officially summoned for a debriefing on his suspicious activities in other countries after the United States provided evidence to the Pakistan Government, and confessed it a month later.^[3] Some have alleged that these activities were sanctioned by the authorities, though the Pakistan government sharply dismissed the claims.^[4][5] After years of nominal house arrest, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on 6 February 2009 declared Abdul Qadeer Khan to be a free citizen of Pakistan, allowing him free movement inside the country. The verdict was rendered by Chief Justice Sardar Muhammad Aslam.^[6] In September 2009, expressing concerns over the Islamabad High Court‘s decision to end all security restrictions on Khan, the United States warned that Khan still remains a “serious proliferation risk”.^[7]

Early life

Khan was born in Bhopal, India (then British Indian Empire) into a Urdu-speaking family in 1936. His father Dr. Abdul Ghafoor Khan was an academic who served in the Education ministry of the British Indian Government and after retirement in 1935, settled permanently in Bhopal State.^[8] After the partition in 1947, the family emigrated from India to Pakistan, and settled in West-Pakistan.^[9] Khan studied in Saint Anthony’s High School of Lahore, and then enrolled at the D.J. Science College of Karachi to study physics and mathematics.^[9] After making a transfer in 1956, he attended Karachi University, obtaining BSc in Metallurgy in 1960; subsequently he got the internship at the Siemens Engineering.^[9]

After the internship, he was employed by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and worked as an city inspector of weight and measures in Karachi.^[9] In 1961, he went to West Berlin to study Metallurgical engineering at the Technical University Berlin.^[9] Qadeer Khan obtained an engineer’s degree in technology from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and a doctorate engineering in Metallurgical engineering under the supervision of Martin Brabers from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, in 1972.^[9] Qadeer Khan’s doctoral dissertations were written in German.^[9] His doctoral thesis dealt and contained fundamental work on martensite, and its extended industrial applications to the field of Morphology, a field that studies the shape, size, texture and phase distribution of physical objects.^[9][10]

Research in Europe

Main articles: Nuclear power in the Netherlands and Netherlands and weapons of mass destruction

In 1972, the year he received his doctorate, Abdul Qadeer Khan through a former university classmate, and a recommendation from his old professor and mentor, Martin J. Brabers, joined the senior staff of the Physics Dynamics Research Laboratory in Amsterdam.^[11] There, he began his studies on the high-strength metals to be used for the development of gas centrifuges.^[12] The gas centrifuges were first studied by Jesse Beams during the Manhattan Project in 1940s but research was discontinued in 1944. The Physics Laboratory was a subcontractor for URENCO Group, the uranium enrichment research facility at Almelo, Netherlands, which was established in 1970 by the Netherlands to assure a supply of enriched uranium for nuclear power plants in the Netherlands.^[11] Soon when the URENCO Group offered him to join the senior scientific staff there, Qadeer Khan left the Physics Laboratories.^[11] There, he was tasked to perform physics experiments on uranium metallurgy,^[11] to produce commercial-grade uranium metals usable for light water reactors.^[11]

In the meantime, the URENCO Group handed him the drawings of centrifuges for the mathematical solution of the physics problems in the gas centrifuges.^[11] Uranium enrichment is a difficult physical process, as ²³⁵U exists in natural uranium at a concentration of only 0.7%; URENCO used Zippe-type centrifuges for that purpose to separate the isotopes ²³⁵U from non-fissile ²³⁸U by spinning UF₆ gas at up to 100,000RPM.^[11] Abdul Qadeer Khan’s academic and leading-edge research in metallurgy brought laurels to the URENCO Group.^[11]

 URENCO enjoyed a good academic relationship with him, and had him as one of its most senior scientists at the facility where he researched and studied.^[11] At URENCO, Abdul Qadeer Khan pioneering research to improve the efficiency of the centrifuges greatly contributed to the technological advancement of the Zippe centrifuges, a method that was developed by mechanical engineer Gernot Zippe in the Soviet Union during the 1940s.^[11] URENCO granted Qadeer Khan access to the most restricted areas of its facility as well as to highly classified documentation on gas centrifuge technology.^[11]

1971 war and return to Pakistan

Main articles: Operation Smiling Buddha, Project-706, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto#Father of the Nuclear weapons program

The clandestine and highly secretive atomic bomb project of Pakistan was given a start on 20 January 1972, when President (later Prime minister) Zulfikar Ali Bhutto chaired a secret meeting of academic scientists at Multan.^[13] The winter planning seminar known as Multan meeting, the atomic bomb project was launched under the administrative control of Bhutto, and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (or PAEC) under its chairman, Munir Ahmad Khan.^[13] Earlier efforts were directed towards the implosion-type bomb with exploration of the Plutonium route.^[13] Prior to 1974, Khan had no knowledge of existence of country’s integrated atomic development, a controversy that highly doubts Abdul Qadeer Khan’s “father-of” claim.

It was only on 18 May 1974, when he was alerted after India surprised the world with its first nuclear test (codename: Smiling Buddha), near Pakistan’s eastern border under the secret directives of Indian Premier Indira Gandhi.^[13] Conducted by the Indian Army, it was only three years since Pakistan’s humiliating defeat in the 1971 Winter war and the outcomes of the war had put Pakistan’s strategic position in great danger.^[14] The nuclear test greatly alarmed the Government of Pakistan and the people.^[13] Prime minister Zulfikar Bhutto squeezed the time limit of the atomic bomb project from five years to three years, in a vision to evolve and derived the country’s scientific atomic project as from the “atomic capability to sustainable nuclear power”.^[13] Sensing the importance of this test, Munir Ahmad Khan secretly launched the Project-706, a codename of a secret uranium enrichment program under the domain of the atomic project.^[13]

Following the news about Pakistan, Khan wanted to contribute to the post-war military posture and approached the Pakistan government officials, offering to assist in Pakistan’s secret atomic bomb project through his knowledge acquired at URENCO.^[15] He insisted in joining the atomic bomb project^[16] but was disuated by the military scientists who considered as “hard to find” a job in PAEC as a “metallurgist”.^[15]

Undaunted, he wrote to Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, highlighting his specific experience and encouraged Prime Minister Bhutto to work on an atomic bomb using uranium.^[15] According to Kuldip Nayyar, although the letter was received by Prime minister Secretariat, Qadeer Khan was still unknown to the Government, leading Bhutto to ask the ISI to run a complete background check on Khan and prepare an assessment report on him.^[17] The ISI declared him as “incompetent” in the field of nuclear technology based on his academic discipline.^[17] Unsatisfied with ISI’s report, Bhutto was eager to know more about him, and asked Munir Ahmad Khan to dispatch a team of PAEC’s scientists to meet him.^[18] The PAEC team including Sultan Mahmood travelled to Amsterdam and arrived at his family home at night. Discussions were held until the next day.^[18] After the team’s return to Pakistan, Bhutto decided to meet with Khan, and directed a confidential letter to him. Soon after, Abdul Qadeer Khan took a leave from URENCO Group, and departed for Pakistan in 1974.^[18]

Initiation and atomic bomb project

Main article: Project-706

In December 1974, Abdul Qadeer Khan went to Pakistan and took a taxi straight to the Prime minister Secretariat.^[19] The session with Bhutto was held at midnight and remained under extreme secrecy.^[19] There, Qadeer Khan met with Zulfikar Bhutto, Munir Khan, and Dr. Mübaschir Hassan, government Science Adviser.^[19] At this session, he enlightened the importance of uranium as opposed to plutonium, but Bhutto remain unconvinced to adopt uranium instead of plutonium for the development of an atomic bomb.^[19] Although Bhutto ended the session quickly he remarked to his friends that: “He seems to make sense.”^[19]

Early morning the next day another session was held where he focussed the discussion on uranium against plutonium, with other PAEC officials presented.^[16] Even though he explained to Bhutto why he thought the idea of “plutonium” would not work, Qadeer Khan was fascinated by the possibility of atomic bomb.^[16] Many of the theorists at that time, including Munir Khan maintained that “plutonium and the nuclear fuel cycle has its significance”,^[14] and Munir Khan insisted that with the “French extraction plant in the offing, Pakistan should stick with its original plan.”^[14] Bhutto did not disagree, but saw the advantage of mounting a parallel effort toward acquiring HEU fuel.^[14][20] At the last session with Zulfikar Bhutto, Khan also advocated for the development of a fused design to compress the single fission element in the metalized gun-type atomic device, which many of his fellow theorists said would be unlikely to work.^[16][21]

Finally in 1976, he joined the atomic bomb project, and became a member of the enrichment division at PAEC.^[19] Calculations performed by him were valuable contributions to centrifuges and vital link to nuclear weapon research.^[13] He continued to push his ideas for uranium methods even though they had a low priority, with most efforts still aimed to produce military-grade plutonium.^[19] Because of his interest in uranium, and his frustration at having been passed over for director of the uranium division (the job was instead given to Bashiruddin Mahmood), Qadeer Khan refused to engage in further research and caused tensions with other researchers.^[19] He became highly unsatisfied and bored with the research led by Mahmood; finally, he submitted a critical report to Bhutto, in which he explained that the “enrichment program” was nowhere near success.^[19]

Kahuta Research Laboratories

Main articles: Engineering Research Laboratories and Kahuta Test

Bhutto sensed great danger as the scientists were split between uranium and plutonium routes.^[19] Therefore, he called Khan for a meeting, which was held at the prime minister secretariat. With the backing of Bhutto, Qadeer Khan took over the enrichment program and renamed the project to Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL).^[19] Abdul Qadeer Khan insisted to work with the Corps of Engineers to lead the construction of the suitable operational enrichment site, which was granted. The E-in-C directed Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar of Corps of Engineers to work with Qadeer Khan in Project-706.^[19] The Corps of Engineers and Brigadier Akbar quickly acquired the lands of the village of Kahuta for the project.^[22]

The military realized the dangers of atomic experiments being performed in populated areas and thus remote Kahuta was considered an ideal location for reearch.^[22] Bhutto would subsequently promote Brigadier Zahid Akbar to Major-General and handed over the directorship of the Project-706, with Qadeer Khan being its senior scientist.^[23]

On the other hand, the PAEC did not forgo the electromagnetic isotope separation research and a parallel program was conducted by theoretical physicist Dr. G.D. Allam at Air Research Laboratories (ARL) located at Chaklala PAF base, though G.D. Allam had not seen a centrifuge, but only had a rudimentary knowledge of the Manhattan Project.^[24]

At first, the ERL suffered many setbacks, and relied heavily on the knowledge from URENCO brought by Qadeer Khan.^[24] Meanwhile in April 1976, theorist Ghulam Dastigar Alam accomplished a great feat by successfully rotating the first generation centrifuges to ~30,000 RPM.^[24] When the news reached Qadeer Khan, he immediately requested to Bhutto for G.D. Alam’s assistance which was granted by the PAEC, dispatching a team of scientists including G.D. Alam to ERL.^[24] At ERL, Qadeer Khan joined the team of theoretical physicists headed by theorist dr. GD Allam, working on the physics problems involving the differential equations in the centripetal forces and angular momentum calculations in the ultra-centrifuges.^[24] On 4 June 1978, the enrichment program became fully functional after Dr. G.D. Alam succeeded in separated the ²³⁵U and ²³⁸U isotopes in an important experiment in which Dr. A.Q Khan also took part.^[24][25] Contrary to his expectation, the military approved to the appointment of Major-General Zahid Ali as the scientific director of entire uranium division

Legacy

During his time in the atomic bomb project, he pioneered research in the thermal quantum field and the condensed physics, while co-authored articles on chemical reactions of the highly unstable isotopic particles in the controlled physical system.^[55] He maintains his stance to use of controversial technological solutions to both military and civilian problems, including the use of military technologies for the civilian welfare. Khan also remained a vigorous advocate for a nuclear testing program and defence strength through nuclear weapons. He has justified the Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence program as sparing his country the fate of Iraq or Libya.^[56] In his recent interview, Abdul Qadeer Khan maintained that he has no regrets for what he did and maintained that:

[P]akistan’s motivation for nuclear weapons arose from a need to prevent “nuclear blackmail” by India. Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn’t have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently…. If (Pakistan) had an [atomic] capability before 1971, we [Pakistanis] would not have lost half of our country after a disgraceful defeat.

—Abdul Qadeer Khan, statement on 16 May 2011, published the Newsweek, ^[57]

Abdul Qadeer Khan faced heated and intense criticism from his fellow theorists whom he had worked with in the atomic bomb project, most notably theorist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy.^[58] In addition, Qadeer Khan’s false claims that he was the “father” of the atomic bomb project since its inception and his personal attacks on Munir Khan caused even greater animosity by his fellow theorists, and most particularly, within the general physics community towards Qadeer Khan.^[2][58] Due to public promotion by the Pakistan media, he remains one of the best known but also most controversial scientists in the country.^[3] He has been depicted in the media as Pakistan’s own Dr. Strangelove (commonly referred to Edward Teller) in Stanley Kubrick‘s 1964 satirical film of the same name.^[59]

He is the recipient of the following honors:

Nishan-e-Imtiaz (1999) Nishan-e-Imtiaz (1996) Hilal-e-Imtiaz (1989) Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology[53] 60 Gold medal from universities in the country.[53]

University of Karachi[53] Baqai Medical University[60] Hamdard University[53] Gomal University[53] University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore[53]

Publications

Selected research papers and patents

Nuclear and Material physics

• Dilation investigation of metallic phase transformation in 18% Ni maraging steels, Proceedings of The International Conf. on Martensitie Transformations (1986), The Japan Institute of Metals, pp. 560–565.
• The spread of Nuclear weapons among nations: Militarization or Development, pp. 417–430. (Ref. Nuclear War Nuclear Proliferation and their consequences “Proceedings of the 5th International Colloquium organized by the Group De Bellerive Geneva 27–29 June 1985, Edited by: Sadruddin Aga Khan, Published by Clarendon Press-Oxford 1986).
• Flow induced vibrations in Gas-tube assembly of centrifuges. Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 23(9), (September 1986), pp. 819–827.
• Dimensional anisotropy in 18% of maraging steel,^[61] Seven National Symposium on Frontiers in Physics, written with Anwar-ul-Haq, Mohammad Farooq, S. Qaisar, published at the Pakistan Physics Society (1998).
• Thermodynamics of Non-equilibrium phases in Electron-beam rapid solidification,^[55] Proceedings of the Second National Symposium on Frontiers in Physics, written with A. Tauqeer, Fakhar Hashmi, publisher Pakistan Physics Society (1988).

Books

• Khan, Abdul Qadeer (1972). Advances in Physical Metallurgy (in English, German and Dutch). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Press. ISBN 969-8500-00-6. 

• Khan, Abdul Qadeer (1983). Metallurgical Thermodynamics and Kinetics (in English, German and Dutch). Islamabad, Pakistan: The Proceedings of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. ISBN 978-969-35-0821-5. 
• Khan, Abdul Qadeer; Syed Shabbir Hussain, Mujahid Kamran (1997). Dr. A.Q. Khan on science and education. Islamabad, Pakistan: Sang-e-Meel Publications. ISBN 978-969-35-0821-5..^[24]