THIS is about a reference made in Irfan Husain’s article, ‘From here to Timbuktu’ (July 7), that Dr A.Q. Khan visited Timbuktu thrice and built a hotel there.

In fact, he visited Timbuktu four times during 1998 and 2002 for an inauguration of the Hotel Handrina Khan by his wife Handrina in March 2002. This gave currency to reports in the Pakistani and western media that Dr Khan owned the hotel.

I visited Timbuktu in 2010 and stayed at Hotel Handrina Khan. Most of the rooms were fitted with Daikan air-conditioners made in Pakistan and supplied by an industrialist from Karachi. Furniture like beds also came from Pakistan. During my weeklong stay I had an opportunity to talk to Abdul Rehman Alpha who claimed he was the owner of the hotel. He acknowledged that Dr Khan and his friends provided seed money worth $20,000 in 2000 for building an eight-room hotel. A portrait of Handrina Khan adorns the dining hall of now a 32-room modest hotel.

Dr Khan and at least two of his former associates who travelled with him to Timbuktu maintained that the visits to Timbuktu were purely for tourism purposes. They were, however, facilitated by the Libyan and Sudanese authorities with whom KRL had joint ventures for the production of an anti-tank missile.

The version seems to carry weight as in 2001, when Dr Khan retired as KRL head, his successor Dr Javed Arshad Mirza visited Timbuktu by detouring from Sudan where he had gone to see a joint venture between KRL and Sudan for production of anti-tank missiles.

Mali is a neighbour of Niger where Dr Khan had made two stopovers which triggered apprehensions that apparently he was on the lookout for supply of uranium from Niger, for his own programme or one of his alleged customers: Iran, Iraq or North Korea.

Owner Abdul Rahman reported to the scribe that he wrote a letter to Dr Khan regarding the apprehensions that visitors had developed about his share in the business. Dr Khan wrote a letter to the president of Mali stating that people were wondering whether the hotel belonged to Dr Khan and that Abdul Rahman was his front man. Dr Khan made it clear that therewas no business between Abdul Rahman and Dr Khan.

He also made it clear that he and his friends had extended help to Abdul Rahman for setting up an eight-room hotel.

During a stay of the Mali president in his hotel, Abdul Rahman was told by a presidential aide that the government had investigated him and his hotel and concluded that Dr Khan had no commercial interest in the hotel since no money was ever sent out.

SHAHIDUR REHMANIslamabad