Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Meets Nuclear Scientists in Multan, 1972

President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto convenes a conference of nuclear scientists and engineers in Multan. January 19-21, 1972. At this conference, on the 20th of January, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announced the beginning of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development programme.

According to Feroz Hassan Khan in Eating Grass, The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (2012), this meeting was attended by scientists who played a key role in the nuclear programme, such as Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad, Dr. Inam-ur-Rahman, Dr. Noor Muhammad Butt, Dr. Zafarullah, Dr. Sakhi Muhammad Bhutta, and new chairman of PAEC, Munir Ahmed Khan. (p. 85)

Pictured on stage are President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the chairman of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Ishrat Hussain Usmani, and the honorable Dr. Abdus Salam, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.