05 February 2004	Thursday	13 Zilhaj 1424

LAHORE, Feb 4: The JUP-NS has announced that it will convene an all-party conference in the city on Feb 8 to assemble people from various walks of life on a single platform for protecting country's nuclear programme.

Party president Engineer Saleemullah Khan told a press conference here on Wednesday that the APC would be the first step towards launching a Remove Musharraf drive.

He alleged that Gen Musharraf had initiated action against Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan by removing him from the Kahuta Research Laboratories immediately after the Oct 1999 military coup.

He further alleged that the government was enacting a law to disband the Pakistan Engineering Council only because Dr Khan had become its chairman.

He said as Islamabad had neither signed the CTBT nor the NPT, there was no question of violation of these international laws by a Pakistani scientist.

He chided the MMA for its solo flight on nuclear scientists' issue and its failure to take other political parties along.

Commenting on Dr Khan's televised "confession", he said the great scientist had taken a bold step by accepting all responsibility regarding proliferation of nuclear secrets and had done a great favour to generals' government.

Screening of the statement on the state-run television channel had shown that the government was very upset over politicization of the issue, which had given new hope to the masses about the success of anti-Musharraf drive, he added.