Dr A Q Khan
Monday, September 29, 2014
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Part - XIII
Random thoughts
Last week I wrote something about Dr M Alam. Besides being a very competent and able colleague who designed the atom bomb, he was also an ardent hitchhiker. He, together with Dr Tahir Rasul (colleague of Eng Khokhar and a very competent mechanical engineer who made invaluable contributions to the success of our programme, now professor at Air University), founded a hiking club.
We built a club building and obtained excellent hiking equipment from Germany, free of cost, from our friend, Dr Heinz Mebus. Dr Alam, Dr Tahir, a few other colleagues and Dr Anisur Rahman, a well-known dental surgeon in Islamabad, regularly visited the northern areas for hiking. Their club building has many beautiful photos of the excursions.
One of my priorities was to concentrate, not only on the work, but also on the comfort of my staff. Kahuta was thus turned into a model town with flowers, fruit trees, a swimming pool, dairy, poultry/quail farms, a cricket ground, a football field, tennis and squash courts, a guesthouse at the dam (built by us) for senior staff, utility store, marriage hall, gymnasium, riding club, golf course, bus services for students and a bus service to and from Islamabad/Rawalpindi for families for shopping.
All the plantation and road works were taken care of by Brig Sajawal Khan, DG SWO who was a competent, no-nonsense officer who always delivered as promised. More than six feet tall, fit and well-built, he had a dominating personality and was willing and able to accomplish tasks at top speed. He came as a Lt-Col together with Gen Zahid, was promoted to full colonel with Gen Anis and then became brigadier and DG SWO after Gen Anis was posted as surveyor general of Pakistan. Most of the construction work inside the plant was completed during his tenure. He used to accompany me on my daily inspection of the plant. After retirement from the army I made him DG Maintenance and General Services, a job he performed with excellence.
In April 1998 when we were ready to launch the Ghauri missile from the site prepared at Kahuta, we were told to fire it from Tilla, Jhelum instead. We only had two days in which to make the alternate arrangements – an arduous task with bad roads, sharp turns, obstructing trees, low electric wires, etc. To transport such huge missiles on launchers together with the fuel and other equipment required was an enormous task. Thanks to Brig Sajawal, all went well.
The decision to shift sites at the last minute came from a general at the GHQ who was our liaison. He was afraid that the missile would fly over Rawalpindi and, if there was a mishap, the GHQ and more would be wiped out. He was obviously not aware of the fact that most failures occur during launching or immediately after. This missile was capable of reaching 360 km speed within a few seconds, then, after releasing the warhead, the fuselage falls a few hundred kilometres away. The warhead, pre-programmed to a specific target, would fly ballistically at high speed.
Dr Hashmi, Dr Mirza, Engineers Nasim Khan, Khokhar, Nazir Mirza, Badrul Islam, Brig Behram and many other senior officers were already at the site. On April 6 about 20 colleagues and I drove to Tilla Range by coaster. When we reached, those already there were just having breakfast. I sat down with Dr Hashmi and we got the shock of our lives when a crate snake slid between our legs. Our launching time was 7:30 am. At 7:22 I was informed by an army officer that the missile launch from Son Miani under Samar Mubarakmand had flopped. It had simply rolled over and burst into flame. There were reports of casualties, but these were never confirmed.
When I heard this, I was furious. It was obvious that the timing had been planned to steal our achievement by firing a copy of M-11 which KRL had developed at Khanpur. The drawings for that missile had been passed on to Samar Mubarakmand after we had handed over the factory to the army. I immediately gave the go-ahead and our missile was launched at 7:23. Slightly more than nine minutes later the warhead hit the ground near the target 1,300 km away. The army inspectors posted there confirmed the hit and gave a written report. A helicopter was also there to witness the event. There are many photographs recording the event. Since there were no proper facilities at Tilla Range, I later had weather-resistant sheds built there – bathrooms, cafeteria, kitchen, mosque, etc – which were then donated to the army.
The Tilla Range, Jhelum, fell under the Corps Commander of Mangla, Gen Musharraf at the time. As a courtesy, I invited him to witness the historic launching of Pakistan’s first ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. He said that he had neither been informed, nor invited, by the COAS, Gen Jehangir Karamat. I told him I would inform the chief. He arrived by helicopter an hour before the launch.
We all sat on the balcony of a building about 300 meters from the launching pad. Musharraf was sitting on one side of me with Gen Riaz A Chowhan, DG Medical Services, former surgeon general of Pakistan Army, on the other. Musharraf was reeking of alcohol and I told him that this was most inappropriate. I guess this did not go down well. Later, when he became president, he claimed that the launch had been a failure. It is hard to image this kind of behaviour from a head of state.
After the success of the launch I immediately informed PM Mian Nawaz Sharif. He was extremely pleased and asked me to come to PM House at about 10 pm with the video film. I rushed back to Islamabad and found Mushahid Hussain Syed, Saeed Mehdi and some others with the PM. After viewing the video, at the insistence of Mushahid, they decided to air it in the 1pm news bulletin.
At 11 am the PM addressed officers and participants at the National Defence College (now a university) and broke the news, to which there was thunderous applause. From Gen Zia’s statements the Indians knew that Pakistan had nuclear weapons, but the launching of a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying these weapons from a mobile launcher took the wind out of their sales. It was soon realised by both countries that a large-scale war between the two was now a thing of the past. Neither could afford the costs and damages of a nuclear war.
Brig Sajawal had done an excellent job by providing the logistic support. He was also the one who provided the logistic support for the many nuclear cold tests we carried out from the beginning of 1983 to 1984. May Allah shower His blessings on him and his family and on all those who worked on the missile programme to its successful completion.
![MuZammiL Dr. s[1]n](/data/avatars/m/32/32258.jpg?1370382459){kind=avatar}
seriously ? 
