Daily Times

With the continued blessings of Almighty Allah, the living nation is celebrating another Youm-e-Takbir signifying Pakistan’s becoming a nuclear power and thus attaining a strong defence deterrent.

It was on May 28,1998 that Pakistan had become the first nuclear power of the Islamic world and 7th in the world on the whole after USA, Russian Federation (formerly Soviet Union), Britain, France, China and India.

On this day in 1998, Pakistan conducted five successful nuclear tests in the north-western Chaghi district of Balochistan in response to continued aggressive posturing by its neighbour, India. Pakistan’s decision to test its nuclear weapons was followed by six nuclear tests by India in the second week of the same month of the same year.

The tests placed Pakistan at number seventh of nuclear weapon states and first in the Muslim world. This brought a strategic balance and stability to the region.

Then PM Nawaz Sharif and the military leadership did not succumb to pressure of international and western world who wanted Pakistan not to test its nuclear weapons. India’s nuclear tests caused a public outcry in Pakistan which made the leadership to realise that now it had become indispensable to test nuclear weapons. As a result, Pakistan successfully tested its nuclear devices while rejecting offers of aid amounting to millions of dollars. The decision made the country’s defence unbeatable.

The Youm-e-Takbeer signifies that Pakistan did not want nuclear proliferation and it has achieved nuclear capability in response to the direct aggression and threats from India.

Had Zukfikar Ali Bhutto survived and not hanged during military regime of then Chief of Army Staff/President General Muhammad Ziaul Haq for abetment in the murder of father of a political adversary, Pakistan would have become an atomic power much earlier than May 1998. Nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had played a pivotal role in development of atomic programme, is very much alive and can verify this.