The Kahuta Project started under the supervision of a coordination board that oversaw the activities of
KRL and PAEC. The Board consisted of
A G N Kazi (secretary general, finance),
Ghulam Ishaq Khan (secretary general, defence),
[18] and
Agha Shahi (secretary general, foreign affairs), and reported directly to Bhutto. Ghulam Ishaq Khan and General
Tikka Khan[19] appointed military engineer Major General
Ali Nawab to the program. Eventually, the supervision passed to Lt General
Zahid Ali Akbar in
President General
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's Administration. Moderate uranium enrichment for the production of fissile material was achieved at KRL by April 1978.
[20]
Pakistan's nuclear weapons development was in response to the loss of
East Pakistan in
1971's Bangladesh Liberation War. Bhutto called a meeting of senior scientists and engineers on 20 January 1972, in
Multan, which came to known as "Multan meeting".
[21][22] Bhutto was the main architect of this programme, and it was here that Bhutto orchestrated nuclear weapons programme and rallied Pakistan's academic scientists to build the atomic bomb in three years for national survival.