KARACHI, March 29: Pakistan had made the atomic bomb as early as 1984 but it continued to deny its existence till May 1998 when the testing of its nuclear device by India forced Pakistan to follow suit.

This was revealed by Dr A.Q. Khan, special adviser to the prime minister on strategic programmes, at the 11th anniversary of the Defence Residents’ Society (DRS) on Friday night. Credited with building Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from scratch, Dr Khan said Pakistan had enough atomic bombs to destroy major Indian cities three times over. As the audience clapped enthusiastically, he added that Pakistan could take out Delhi and Bombay (now Mumbai) in five minutes.

“I have often been accused of making incendiary remarks regarding Pakistan’s nuclear capability. The fact of the matter is that I am requested to make such statements. The late General Zia or deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif could not say that Pakistan could target Indian cities. So they asked me to do that. I can say that Pakistan can destroy Delhi and Bombay in five minutes and get away with it,” he explained.

When a questioner, with a voice cracking with emotion, asked him why Pakistan could not give a few bombs to Iraq, Dr Khan said such decisions were made by the government.

Dr Khan recalled he had gone to Germany for higher studies instead of Britain because “even forty years ago I hated England very much”. He added that today he hated Britain even more. “I was in Berlin when East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan. I saw pictures of our troops being incarcerated and humiliated by the Indians. Incensed, I wrote a letter to the then prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, urging him to do something. My wonderment knew no bounds when I actually received a reply from Mr Bhutto asking me to see him. In 1976, he and I agreed to initiate a programme aimed at making the atomic bomb. If then we had not started the programme, we would have been sitting in Bharat at the moment,” he noted.

He recalled that he had informed General Zia in 1984 that Pakistan could detonate its nuclear device anytime. “I even urged the general to make it public that Pakistan had made the atomic bomb. But the foreign office dissuaded him on the plea that American aid to Pakistan would stop if the world learnt that the country had the atomic bomb in its nuclear arsenal.”

He said that in May 1998 he had written to Nawaz Sharif telling him that if he did not detonate Pakistan’s nuclear device, he would go down in history as a very cowardly prime minister. It came out later that former US president Clinton had promised to deposit $100 million in the personal bank accounts of Nawaz Sharif and his brother’s in return for refraining from detonating Pakistan’s nuclear device. India was at its wits end when Pakistan tested its missiles as well.”

The administrator of the Defence Housing Authority, Brig Asif Ghazali, spoke about several ongoing development projects in Defence. The DRS president, Zafar Iqbal, delivered the welcome address and Masroor Akhtar, DRS senior vice president, presented the vote of thanks. The function was followed by a Mushaira.