April 29, 2006	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 30, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, April 28: Senior nuclear scientist of the KRL Dr Farooq Ahmed was released on Thursday night after two and a half years of ‘debriefing’, family sources told Dawn on Friday.

“It is true that my father has returned home,” his son Asim Farooq said, adding that his condition was ‘satisfactory’. However, another source said Dr Farooq had become feeble and weak.

The source said the house of Dr Farooq had been heavily guarded and nobody was allowed to meet him on Friday.

Dr Farooq, who was picked up from Islamabad on November 27, 2003, along with two colleagues, Dr Saeed and Dr Chuhan, for ‘debriefing’, has been directed to avoid meeting people.

The source said that Dr Farooq had closely worked with Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. He was accused of selling centrifuges and other hardware used in enrichment of uranium to Libya. It is learnt that Dr Farooqu and other scientists who have been freed were required to sign an undertaking that they would not leak any information about the debriefing session.

They were also asked not to disclose to any person any secret official code or password or any sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information which related to the KRL or the nuclear project and programme of Pakistan or which has been entrusted in confidence to them or which was received by them or which they have obtained or to which they had access owing to their positions as persons holding their offices in and employed by the KRL or as persons connected with or having information about the nuclear project and programme of Pakistan”.